^SwoFprw^ 


&OKK. 


BR  1720  .A7  H68  1906 
Hough,  Lynn  Harold,  1877- 
Athanasius,  the  hero 


TOeit  cf  tltB  iKittgdnm 


Athanasius:   The  Hero 


By     y 
Lynn  Harold  Hough 

Drew  Theological  Seminary 


CINCINNATI:  JENNINGS  AND  GRAHAM 
NEW    YORK:   EATO  N     AND     MAINS 


Copyright,   1906,   by 
Jennings  &  Graham 


€jx  Jftg  Jtaxito 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  days  when  men  could  be  ruled  by  formal 
and  lifeless  dogma  have  passed.  The  days  when 
all  dogma  is  looked  upon  with  suspicion  are  pass- 
ing. We  are  beginning  to  learn  that  there  is  no 
particular  merit  in  being  uncertain  about  nearly 
everything  fundamental  in  theology,  and  in  repudi- 
ating all  well-defined  boundaries.  The  days  of  a 
living  dogma,  thrilling  with  creative  energy,  and 
claiming  no  authority  but  its  own  vitality,  are  ap- 
proaching. Because  to  Athanasius,  theology  was 
not  a  mechanism  but  a  vitality ;  because  he  under- 
stood that  such  doctrines  as  the  Deity  of  our  Lord 
are  an  essential  part  of  Christianity,  and  must  be 
preserved  at  whatever  cost;  and  because  there  are 
no  truths  more  important  than  these  to  our  own 
eager,  much  seeking  age;  it  has  been  a  joy  to 
write  this  little  book  about  him. 

In  sending  it  forth,  I  wish  to  express  my  obli- 
gations to  my  friend  the  Rev.  Samuel  G.  Ayres, 

5 


6  Prefatory  Note. 

Librarian  of  the  Drew  Theological  Seminary,  for 
courtesies  extended  to  me  during  my  investigations 
of  the  subject. 

Lynn  Harou>  Hough. 
Kings  Park,  New  York. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

I.    The  Times  of  Athanasius,    -         -  9 

II.    The  City  of  Athanasius,          -         -  30 

III.  The  Early  Life  of  Athanasius,    -  -       35 

IV.  The  Rise  of  Arianism  and  the  Coun- 

cil of  Nic^ea,       .         .         -  44 

V.    Athanasius  Bishop,       ...  -       60 

VI.    The  First  Exile,      -         -         -         -  75 
VII.    The  Restoration  and  the  Second 

Exile,      - 83 

VIII.    The  Period  of  the  Second  Restora- 
tion,    102 

IX.    The  Third  Exile,          -         -         -  -     113 

X.    The  Last  Years  of  Athanasius,        -  130 

s  XI.    The  Theology  of  Athanasius,       -  -     143 
XII.    The  Message  of  Athanasius  to  Our 

Time, 157 


Athanasius:   The  Hero 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE  TIMES  OF  ATHANASIUS. 

It  is  not  easy  to  become  a  citizen  of  the  past. 
To-day  claims  us.  We  are  a  part  of  its  life.  Our 
thoughts,  our  feelings,  our  way  of  looking  at  things, 
belong  to  the  present.  We  but  dimly  realize  that  all 
down  the  far  reaches  of  the  slowly  moving  years, 
multitudes  of  other  men  and  women  have  been  liv- 
ing; numberless  brains  have  been  surging  with 
activity  and  numberless  hearts  have  throbbed  with 
joy  or  woe.  When  we  stop  to  think  of  it,  we  find  it 
all  too  vast  and  overpowering,  and  shrink  back 
into  the  present,  with  perhaps  little  desire  to  touch 
the  icy  hand  of  the  past. 

Yet  we  need  this  contact  with  times  and  men 
long  vanished.  We  need  it  for  what  it  has  to  teach 
us  of  how  men  met  life  in  days  that  are  half  for- 

9 


J 


10  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

gotten.  They  did  not  live  in  vain.  They  have  much 
to  say  to  us. 

History  is  a  treasure  house  of  knowledge  and 
wisdom.  The  present  has  its  roots  in  the  past,  and 
a  man  who  only  knows  the  life  of  to-day  can  never 
fully  understand  it.  Every  thinker,  if  his  thinking 
is  to  have  worth  and  validity,  needs  to  begin  by  get- 
ting to  know  the  past. 

The  Christian  Church  has  had  a  wonderful  his- 
tory. The  story  of  its  life  is  full  of  interest,  of  in- 
struction, of  warning,  and  of  inspiration.  Yet  how 
little  the  average  Christian  knows  about  it.  The 
life  of  the  Church  would  be  richer  and  more  effect- 
ive, if  we  companioned  more  with  the  past. 

One  of  the  periods  of  unique  significance  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  was  the  time  of  the  conflict 
with  those  who  denied  the  deity  of  our  Lord.  From 
this  conflict  one  personality  towers  impressively,  the 
bishop,  the  story  of  whose  life  is  to  be  told  in  these 
pages.  If  we  can  get  back  into  the  heat  of  this  an- 
cient struggle,  if  we  can  succeed  in  getting  into 
living  touch  with  the  man  who  was  its  greatest  hero, 
if  we  can  feel  the  pulsing  currents  of  the  distant  life 
when  the  battle  was  fought,  and  the  real  significance 
of  it  all,  our  lives  will  be  stronger  and  finer  for  the 
experience. 


The  Times  of  Athanasius.  ii 

In  this  chapter  we  shall  attempt  to  place  before 
our  minds  the  facts  which  will  enable  us  to  under- 
stand the  history  and  the  theology  of  the  period 
when  Athanasius  lived. 

A  generation  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  re- 
public of  Rome  became  the  Roman  Empire,  with 
Augustus  Caesar  in  supreme  power.  The  change 
was  at  first  less  a  change  in  form  than  in  reality. 
Old  names  and  institutions  were  preserved,  but  in 
fact  the  republic  had  ceased  to  be.  The  story  of  the 
Roman  Empire  with  its  far-flung  battle  line,  its 
genius  for  colonial  government,  its  practical  con- 
trol of  the  civilized  world  in  spite  of  corruption  and 
moral  decay,  forms  part  of  the  background  of  any 
true  picture  of  the  life  of  the  fourth  century  A.  D. 
The  most  potent  name  in  the  history  of  centuries 
had  been  the  name  of  Rome.  Everywhere  the 
Roman  governor  and  the  Roman  soldiery  had  given 
evidence  of  the  power  of  the  Imperial  City  on  the 
Tiber.  Sometimes  all  was  violence  and  unrest  in 
the  capital  itself.  Emperors  who  were  demons 
rather  than  men  sat  on  the  throne.  In  spite  of  them 
the  empire  remained  massive  and  full  of  strength. 
Sometimes  emperors  Of  character,  and  genius  for 
administration  held  the  reins  of  government  and 
under  them  the  power  and  prestige  of  Rome  in- 


12  Athanasius:  the;  Hero. 

creased.  One  of  the  marvels  of  history  is  this  story 
of  a  great  empire  welded  together  of  people  of  all 
varieties  of  race,  climate,  language,  and  civilization. 
Rome  was  the  great  political  master  of  the  world. 

From  this  situation,  lasting  through  centuries, 
certain  results  had  come.  There  was  a  new  unity 
to  the  life  of  the  world.  Roman  law  had  given  a 
new  stability  to  all  institutions.  Roman  control 
had  made  travel  safe  as  it  had  never  been.  The 
great  roads  built  under  the  supervision  of  Rome, 
typified  the  new  manner  of  life  for  the  world.  Com- 
merce had  protection.  The  world  became  smaller. 
Men  of  different  nations  were  inevitably  drawn  to- 
gether. They  were  shaken  out  of  their  provin- 
cialism. 

This  new  unity  had  another  cause  besides  the 
government  of  Rome. 

Where  the  power  of  Rome  went,  Greek  culture 
followed.  The  Greek  language  was  as  cosmopoli- 
tan as  the  Roman  power.  If  Rome  was  the  political 
governor  of  the  world,  Greece  was  its  intellectual 
ruler.  These  were  very  old  facts  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. The  rule  of  Rome  seemed  as  solidly  based  as 
the  eternal  hills.  To  dispute  it  was  to  court  ruin. 
And  the  pre-eminence  of  Greek  culture  was  un- 
questioned. 


The  Times  of  Athanasius.  13 

Near  the  close  of  the  third  century  Diocletian 
became  the  Roman  emperor.  He  instituted  im- 
portant political  changes,  dividing  the  empire  with 
Maximian,  one  of  his  generals.  Diocletian  held  his 
court  at  Nicomedia  and  Maximian's  residence  was 
at  Milan.  Each  of  these  had  a  subordinate,  who 
was  to  be  his  successor.  Thus  the  empire  had  four 
heads  instead  of  one,  but  with  Diocletian  in  really 
supreme  authority  still.  The  German  tribes  were 
causing  much  anxiety  and  the  empire  needed  to  be 
in  vigorous  hands.  After  a  number  of  years  in 
power,  Diocletian  and  Maximian  transferred  their 
authority  to  their  subordinates.  Diocletian  from 
being  an  emperor  turned  to  be  a  gardener  and  much 
delight  he  professed  to  find  in  his  garden.  With 
the  retirement  of  Diocletian  and  Maximian,  Gale- 
rius  and  Constantius  came  into  supreme  authority. 
After  a  year  Constantius  died,  and  the  soldiers  ig- 
noring the  plans  of  Diocletian  for  the  succession, 
declared  Constantine  emperor.  Five  rivals  had  to 
be  crushed  before  Constantine  was  in  supreme 
power,  and  it  took  him  eighteen  years  to  do  it.  The 
year  324  A.  D.  found  him  the  sole  ruler  of  the  em- 
pire. During  his  reign  Christianity  became  prac- 
tically the  State  religion.  But  of  Christianity  we 
shall  speak  in  a  later  section  of  this  chapter. 


14  Athanasius:  thkHuro. 

Constantine  made  Byzantium  on  the  Bosporus 
the  capital  of  the  empire.  In  honor  of  him  its  name 
was  changed  to  Constantinople.  The  city  of  su- 
preme importance  practically  was  no  longer  on  the 
Tiber.    The  Roman  emperor  had  deserted  Rome. 

After  a  reign  of  thirty-one  years,  Constantine 
died,  leaving  the  empire  to  be  divided  between  his 
three  sons,  Constans,  Constantine,  and  Constantius. 

The  three  sons  of  Constantine  made  their  own 
division  of  the  empire.  They  decided  that  Con- 
stantine II  should  take  the  Gauls  and  Africa,  Con- 
stantius the  East,  and  Constans  Italy  and  Illyricum. 

In  340  A.  D.  Constantine  II  was  killed  while  in- 
vading his  brother  Constans's  territory,  and  Con- 
stans was  murdered  in  350  A.  D.  Constantius  then 
had  to  fight  for  the  empire.  He  was  successful  and 
reigned  as  its  one  ruler  for  about  eight  years.  Upon 
his  death  there  was  a  sudden  change  in  the  affairs  of 
the  world.  Julian,  who  had  gone  back  to  paganism, 
came  into  power,  and  his  brief  reign  was  an  en- 
deavor to  reinstate  heathenism.  He  was  killed 
while  fighting  the  Persians  in  363  A.  D. 

Another  quick  reversion — this  time  to  Chris- 
tianity— characterized  the  reign  of  Jovian.  (A.  D. 
363-4.) 


The;  Times  o£  Athanasius.  15 

Valentinian,  another  soldier,  became  emperor 
upon  the  death  of  Jovian.  He  took  charge  of  the 
western  provinces  and  assigned  the  eastern  to  his 
brother  Valens.  The  reign  of  Valentinian  and 
Valens  reaches  beyond  the  limits  of  Athanasius's 
life.  And  with  their  names  our  outline  of  its  polit- 
ical history  may  come  to  a  close.  The  movements 
of  the  German  tribes  were  becoming  more  and  more 
ominous  during  these  last  years. 

It  has  been  impossible  for  us  to  refer  even  in  a 
summary  way  to  the  history  of  the  period  without 
mentioning  Christianity — the  most  vital  fact  of  all. 

Now  we  must  look  at  the  rise  of  Christianity 
and  its  situation  in  the  fourth  century  more  closely. 

In  the  reign  of  Augustus,  in  a  small  country  far 
from  the  capital,  Jesus  Christ  was  born.  The  be- 
ginnings of  the  new  religion  were  humble  in  the  ex- 
treme. At  the  time  of  the  death  of  Christ,  His 
name  was  scarcely  known  outside  of  Palestine.  The 
leaders  of  His  own  people  had  rejected  Him,  and 
their  hostility  had  led  to  His  death,  A  few  humble 
men — fishermen  and  others — were  His  followers. 
The  outlook  did  not  seem  to  indicate  that  Christian- 
ity would  be  more  than  a  small  Jewish  sect, — too 
insignificant  to  secure  even  passing  notice  in  the  life 
of  the  great  empire. 


iS  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

But  soon  the  new  faith  began  to  show  extraor- 
dinary power  of  propagation.  From  the  start  it  en- 
countered Jewish  hostility,  which  soon  became  per- 
secution. The  Christians  who  fled  from  Jewish 
persecutions,  however,  became  the  disseminators  of 
the  faith.  In  Palestine,  in  Asia  Minor,  and  then  on 
along  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  the  new  re- 
ligion made  its  way.  The  Jews  followed  with 
hatred  and  hostility,  but  Christianity  kept  on  win- 
ning victory  after  victory.  When  large  masses  of 
people  became  Christians,  the  worship  at  particular 
heathen  temples  began  to  suffer.  Now  as  at  these 
centers  of  idolatry,  many  people  depended  for  their 
livelihood  on  the  prosperity  of  the  temples,  and  the 
gathering  of  eager  multitudes  for  worship,  Chris- 
tianity encountered  a  new  difficulty.  With  the  best 
intentions  in  the  world  it  began  to  interfere  with 
men's  prosperity.  This  roused  hatred  and  opposi- 
tion. It  was  the  prelude  to  the  great  three-century 
battle  when  Christianity  would  meet  in  conflict  the 
forces  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

While  Xero  was  yet  on  the  throne,  occurred  the 
burning  of  Rome.  The  emperor  himself  was  sus- 
pected of  having  caused  it.  To  divert  suspicion 
from  himself,  he  looked  about  for  some  set  of  peo- 
ple to  accuse. 


The  Times  of  Athanasius.  17 

His  eye  fell  upon  the  Christians,  who  had  es- 
tablished themselves  in  Rome.  They  suited  his 
purpose,  and  he  branded  them  as  incendiaries.  It 
seems  strange  enough  now  to  think  that  some  things 
about  the  Christians  would  seem  to  give  color  to  the 
emperor's  accusation,  innocent  as  they  were.  They 
did  not  reverence  the  Roman  Empire.  They  be- 
lieved it  would  come  to  an  end,  and  that  quickly. 
Their  hope  was  the  downfall  of  Rome,  the  end  of 
the  world,  and  the  coming  of  Christ.  So  they  were 
branded  as  haters  of  the  human  race,  as  the  in- 
human wretches  who  set  on  fire  the  Imperial  City, 
and  a  terrible  persecution  began.  Then  came  cruel 
orgies  of  barbarity,  when  Christians  were  sewed  up 
in  the  skins  of  wild  beasts  and  devoured  by  fero- 
cious dogs  which  were  set  upon  them,  or  covered 
with  pitch,  were  made  at  night  the  living  torches 
for  Nero's  garden.  This  local  Roman  persecution 
was  the  beginning  of  the  long  period  of  trial. 

We  are  not  to  think  of  the  three  centuries  of 
opposition  to  Christianity  as  times  of  incessant  per- 
secution. There  were  long  periods  of  quiet.  And 
often  the  Christians  were  unmolested  in  one  place 
while  they  were  meeting  trials  of  awful  severity  in 
another. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  us  that  except  as  the  re- 
2 


18  Atiiaxasius:  the  Hero. 

suit  of  a  false  accusation  like  that  of  Nero,  the 
Christians  should  have  met  the  power  of  the  em- 
pire set  against  them  in  persecution.  For  Rome 
was  the  home  of  a  multitude  of  faiths.  Why  should 
all  other  men  be  unmolested  and  the  Christians  per- 
se cuted?  The  answer  is  that  the  Roman  authority 
allowed  you  to  worship  any  deity  you  chose,  pro- 
vided you  also  acknowledged  the  national  religion. 
But  this  was  just  what  the  Christian  could  not  do. 
Xot  much  comfort  he  could  find  in  being  told  that 
he  might  worship  Christ  if  he  would  only  first  wor- 
ship the  emperor.  With  him,  if  he  was  loyal  to  his 
Master,  there  could  be  no  division  of  worship.  To 
God  alone  and  Christ  as  God  might  he  pray.  The 
seeming  liberality  of  the  Roman  offered  no  ac- 
ceptable terms  to  him.  To  accept  what  Rome  of- 
fered, to  do  what  Rome  demanded,  meant  to  be 
false  to  Christ. 

Sometimes,  as  under  Trajan,  the  persecution 
had  its  side  of  clemency. 

Tt  was  Trajan  who  declared  that  the  officers 
should  not  proceed  against  Christians,  except  on  the 
ground  of  specific  accusation.  Still  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian was  to  be  legally  subject  to  persecution,  even 
when  the  matter  was  not  actually  pressed.  The  fol- 
lower of  Christ  never  knew  when  some  enemy 


The;  Times  of  Athanasius.  19 

might  accuse  him,  and  the  alternative  would  be  to 
worship  heathen  gods  or  pay  the  penalty  of  his  loy- 
alty to  his  Master. 

Sometimes,  as  under  Marcus  Aurelius,  a  pes- 
tilence was  declared  to  indicate  the  wrath  of  the 
gods  because  of  the  forsaking  of  their  shrines,  and 
Christians  suffered  because  of  the  superstition.  It 
was  in  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius  that  Polycarp 
went  to  his  martyrdom.  We  do  well  to  remember 
the  words  of  the  old  man  when  urged  to  give  up  his 
faith,  "Eighty-six  years,"  he  said,  "I  have  served 
Christ,  and  He  has  done  me  no  harm ;  how  could  I 
now  blaspheme  my  King  who  has  redeemed  me?" 

With  the  reign  of  Decius  commenced  the  last 
period  of  relentless  and  brutal  persecution.  Despite 
all  efforts  to  overthrow  it,  Christianity  had  grown. 
It  seemed  to  possess  an  inner  quality  of  vitality  and 
strength  which  made  it  impossible  to  crush  it.  All 
ranks  and  classes  of  society  had  been  permeated  by 
it.  The  time  had  come  when  it  was  necessary  to 
take  strong  and  remorseless  measures  if  it  was  to 
be  wiped  out.  Officers  were  ordered  to  proceed 
against  Christians  without  waiting  for  specific  ac- 
cusations. Then  a  cruelly  ingenious  plan  was  de- 
vised. The  persecution  was  directed  especially 
against  the  leaders  and  men  of  high  rank  among  the 


20 


Athanasius  :  the:  Hero. 


Christians.  Once  get  these  out  of  the  way,  and 
the  headless  mass  of  Christians  would  soon  give  up 
their  religion.  This  was  the  belief  of  those  who 
made  the  plan. 

When  the  heat  of  this  persecution  subsided 
Christianity  still  lived  and  a  time  of  rest  for  the 
Church  followed.  This  was  the  prelude  to  the  ter- 
rible persecution  beginning  under  Diocletian.  Edict 
after  edict,  each  more  cruel  than  the  others,  came 
forth.  Every  Bible  was  to  be  burned,  the  churches 
were  to  be  devastated,  and  the  Christians  were  to 
be  deprived  of  civil  rights.  On  pain  of  death,  all 
Christians  were  to  sacrifice  to  the  gods.  When 
Diocletian  abdicated,  his  successor  in  the  East, 
Galerius,  held  a  perfect  carnival  of  persecution. 
Then  it  has  been  said,  "Christians  suffered  every- 
thing which  ruthless  tyrants  could  inflict." 

But  this  last  awful  darkness  was  the  darkness 
just  before  the  dawn. 

To  even  Galerius  it  became  evident  that  he  was 
fighting  a  losing  battle,  and  on  his  deathbed  he  is- 
sued an  edict  of  toleration.  It  was  not  long  until 
the  last  blood  had  been  spilled,  and  the  days  of  cruel 
and  wholesale  persecution  by  the  Roman  Empire 
were  over.  No  one  knows  how  many  went  to  mar- 
tyrs' graves  in  these  centuries  of  dire  trial.     But 


The;  Times  of  Athanasius.  21 

the  world  over,  Christ  had  His  confessors.  Many 
had  recanted.  But  in  every  country  the  faith  had 
its  heroes  who  were  loyal  unto  death.  The  blood 
of  the  martyrs  was  indeed  the  seed  of  the  Church. 
They  were  fighting  the  battle  of  all  future  cen- 
turies.   It  was  they  who  kept  Christianity  alive. 

Constantine  came  to  the  throne  under  the  very 
shadow  of  the  last  persecution.  His  father  had 
been  tolerant,  and  his  son  inherited  this  quality  from 
his  father.  But  under  his  rule  there  was  more  than 
toleration — Christianity  became  the  State  religion. 
He  professed  to  have  seen  a  vision  before  a  battle 
with  Maxentius — in  which  the  cross  appeared  with 
the  inscription  "In  hoc  signo  vince" — "By  this  sign 
conquer."  Constantine  made  the  cross  his  standard, 
and  the  Roman  soldiers  marched  under  it.  The 
hated  sign,  of  the  death  of  the  Galilean  peasant,  was 
thus  emblazoned  on  the  banner  of  the  emperor  who 
became  sole  ruler  of  all  the  empire. 

It  must  have  been  a  time  of  sacred  joy  to  mul- 
titudes of  Christians.  No  wonder  they  thought 
highly  of  Constantine  and  were  eager  to  speak  of 
him  in  eulogy.  Now,  we  may  be  more  discriminat- 
ing in  our  praise  of  him,  but  we,  too,  must  regard 
this  time  as  one  of  unique  triumph  for  the  Chris- 
tian faith. 


22  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

Alas !  that  the  Church  at  peace  with  the  empire 
should  be  found  in  bitter  intellectual  internal  war. 
Alas !  that  success  and  power  meant  the  seculariza- 
tion of  much  of  the  Church's  life.  However,  these 
things  belong  to  the  story  of  Athanasius.  We  have 
said  enough  to  make  clear  what  a  great  history  lay 
behind  him  in  the  Christian  Church.  But  Chris- 
tians had  been  doing  more  than  living  and  being 
persecuted  in  these  three  centuries.  They  had  been 
thinking,  too,  and  we  must  now  turn  our  attention 
to  what  had  been  going  on  in  Christian  thought, 
before  the  time  of  Athanasius. 

We  make  a  mistake  if  we  think  of  the  Apostolic 
Church  as  one  come  to  full  self-consciousness  and 
possessed  of  a  completely  thought-out  and  fully  ar- 
ticulated theology.  This  was  to  be  the  work  of  ages 
of  Christian  thinking.  The  faith  of  many,  probably 
most  of  the  early  Christians  was  of  a  naive  char- 
acter, quite  apart  from  philosophical  reflection.  The 
present  and  perfect  salvation  in  Christ  filled  the 
thought  of  men,  and  they  lived  in  its  light  with  not 
a  great  deal  of  reflection  on  the  theology  involved 
in  this  salvation.  Tn  Paul  we  have  a  really  theolog- 
ical temperament,  and  in  his  writings  a  nearer  ap- 
proach to  the  work  of  a  systematic  Christian  thinker 
than  elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament. 


The  Times  of  Athanasius.  23 

But  speaking  broadly,  we  may  say  that  the  New 
Testament  contains  the  materials  for  a  worked  out 
theology,  rather  than  the  theology  itself. 

Having  minds  imposes  certain  results  upon  men, 
however.  They  must  reflect ;  they  must  justify  their 
opinions  at  the  bar  of  their  own  mental  life.  They 
must  systematize  these  thoughts  and  finally  build 
up  world  views  which  they  endeavor  to  make  unified 
and  consistent.  This  is  as  true  of  Christian  minds 
as  of  any  other  minds.  To  have  Christian  men 
meant  ultimately  and  of  necessity  to  have  a  Chris- 
tian theology. 

Other  causes  pressed  Christians  toward  reflect- 
ing upon  and  adequately  stating  their  faith.  The 
second  century,  a  period  of  expansion  and  con-  S 
stantly  increasing  influence  for  Christianity,  was 
also  an  exceedingly  literary  age.  So  it  came  about 
that  the  faith  not  only  met  persecution  but  also 
literary  attack.  With  great  brilliancy  and  resource- 
fulness, pagan  thinkers  leveled  their  artillery 
against  the  advancing  columns  of  the  new  religion. 
The  work  of  Celsus  is  an  example  of  this  powerful 
attack.  The  Church  had  to  meet  it.  Christianity 
could  not  remain  quiet  under  false  accusations,  mis- 
representation, and  all  the  swift  arrows  of  skillful 


24  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

and  hostile  argument.  So  arose  the  Christian 
Apologists. 

And  right  bravely  they  entered  the  lists  to  do 
battle  for  their  faith.  Calumnies  met  reply.  The 
Gospel  was  defended  with  ardor  and  with  genuine 
skill.  Themselves  returning  the  attack,  the  apolo- 
gists held  heathenism  up  to  scorn,  and  showed  by 
arguments  whose  weight  could  not  be  successfully 
denied  that  the  heathen  thinker  lived  in  a  structure 
ready  to  fall.  The  onslaughts  of  clear  and  vigorous 
thinking  left  heathenism  very  shabby  and  quite  de- 
fenseless. These  apologists  were  not  modern  theolo- 
gians. They  made  mistakes.  Their  arguments  would 
not  always  recommend  themselves  in  a  present-day 
theology.  But  they  did  their  work.  They  defended 
the  faith,  and  they  gave  utterance  to  some  great  ar- 
guments of  permanent  value. 

Another  and  more  difficult  problem  roused 
Christian  thinkers.  The  faith  was  attacked  not  only 
from  without  but  also  from  within.  The  age  was 
one  of  syncretism — of  the  combining  of  faiths,  and 
the  attempt  was  made  to  preserve  much  that  was 
heathen  in  the  Church.  The  Gnostics  were  the  most 
subtle  and  dangerous  foes  Christian  thinkers  had  to 
meet  during  the  second  century. 

Gnosticism    was    an    aristocracy    within    the 


The;  Times  of  Athanasius.  25 

Church.  It  professed  to  speak  to  the  spiritually 
elite  who  could  understand  its  mysteries.  In  forms 
so  varied  that  it  is  difficult  to  speak  in  generaliza- 
tions about  it,  this  method  of  interpreting  Chris- 
tianity tried  to  take  possession  of  the  Church.  God 
was  infinitely  removed — and  intermediaries  were 
put  between  Him  and  creation.  Complete  mythol- 
ogies were  imported  wholesale  into  Christianity. 
Armed  with  the  Gnostic  view  of  the  faith,  the  Chris- 
tian might  defend  himself  for  becoming  either  a 
morbid  ascetic  or  a  licentious  libertine.  Sound 
Christian  consciousness  condemned  the  whole 
movement,  and  literary  defenders  rose  up  to  express 
this  condemnation  in  vigorous  and  effective  form. 
The  whole  complex  of  Gnostic  systems  passed  away 
at  length  like  a  dark  storm  cloud. 

During  this  period  the  need  of  standards  upon 
which  to  rely  was  keenly  felt.  And  so  the  New 
Testament  canon  came  to  its  permanent  form.  The 
Gnostics  were,  however,  wonderfully  fertile  at  in- 
genious misinterpretation.  So  not  only  the  New 
Testament  canon,  but  the  interpretation  of  it,  com- 
ing down  from  the  earliest  times,  came  to  be  recog- 
nized. Thus  emerged  the  rule  of  faith.  The  preser- 
vation of  the  earliest  interpretation  was  felt  to  be 
most  sure  in  the  most  ancient  sees  with  a  regular 


26  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

succession  of  bishops.  So  the  belief  in  the  impor- 
tance of  certain  sees  and  in  apostolic  succession  be- 
gan to  arise.  There  was  good  and  the  possibility 
of  evil  in  these  standards.  On  the  latter  side  two 
of  them  helped  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  preten- 
sions of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  These  pre- 
tensions were  doubtless  far  enough  from  the  minds 
of  the  defenders  of  the  faith,  who  used  these  stand- 
ards against  the  Gnostics  in  the  days  of  their  battle.1 

In  the  third  century  the  Church  grappled  with 
the  problem  of  the  Trinity.  The  statements  of  early 
thinkers  had  often  been  loose  and  inadequate,  more 
because  the  problem  had  not  yet  been  thought  out, 
than  from  any  real  tendency  to  heresy. 

In  the  third  century  these  partly  articulate  views 
came  to  a  clearer  issue.  And  the  false  positions  the 
Church  was  called  upon  to  repudiate,  may  be 
summed  up  under  the  term  moj^ajxhiamsm — which 
has  been  defined  as  the  tendency  which  emphasizes 
the  unity  of  God,  and  rejects  the  personal  Trinity. 
The  most  completely  worked  out  system  of  this 
variety  was  Sabellianism.  Here  was  offered  a 
modal,  instead  of  an  actual  Trinity.  There  was  one 
<  5od.  I  Ie  had  revealed  Himself  first  as  Father,  then 
a-  Son,  and  then  as  Holy  Ghost.    But  the  Trinity 

1  Cf.  Professor  James  Orr,  Progress  of  Dogma,  Lecture  II. 


The  Times  of  Athanasius.  27 

was  one  of  manifestation,  one  in  history.  It  did 
not  belong  to  the  Godhead  itself.  There  were  not 
three  persons  in  the  Godhead,  there  was  one  per- 
son who  revealed  Himself  in  three  aspects.  This 
system,  as  all  the  other  forms  of  monarchianism, 
was  open  to  insuperable  objections.  And  the  sound 
consciousness  of  the  Church  rejected  it.  Only  in 
the  belief  in  three  fundamental  eternal  distinctions 
in  the  Godhead  could  Christian  thinkers  who  car- 
ried their  life  with  them  in  their  thought  find  rest. 
This  battle  represented  another  step  forward.  The 
Church  was  moving:  into  a  clearer  self-conscious- 
ness. 

The  next  conflict  was  to  deal  with  Jesus  Christ 
Himself.  He  was  the  center  of  the  faith  and  men 
must  settle  how  they  were  to  think  of  Him. 

This  was  the  battle  regarding  the  deity  of  our      y 
Lord,  and  this  brings  us  to  the  period  of  Athanasius. 

In  the  above  consideration  of  the  early  intel- 
lectual conflicts  of  the  faith,  we  have  spoken  of 
principles  rather  than  men.  Let  us  now  remind  our- 
selves of  a  few  of  the  great  names  which  come  be- 
fore the  time  of  Athanasius  in  the  intellectual  his- 
tory of  the  Church.  Probably  the  five  most  im- 
portant names  after  the  age  of  the  apostles  and  be- 
fore the  fourth  century  are:    Justin  Martyr,  Ire- 


28  Athanasius  :  the:  Hero. 

naeus,  Tertullian,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  Ori- 
gen. Justin  Martyr  was  born  in  Samaria.  He  was 
a  philosopher,  a  Christian  apologist,  and  met  a  mar- 
tyr's death  during  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 
Irenaeus  was  a  native  of  Asia  Minor  and  a  Christian 
bishop.  He  wrote  "Against  the  Heresies."  He 
died  about  202  A.  D.  Tertullian  was  born  about 
160  A.  D.  He  wrote  in  Latin.  He  represents  the 
tendency  to  repudiate  philosophy.  He  did  im- 
portant apologetical  work.  The  tegal  attitude  so 
characteristic  of  the  Latin  mind  was  his.  Clement 
and  Origen  both  belonged  to  the  great  school  at 
Alexandria.  They  represent  the  attitude  of  the 
Greek  theology,  with  its  openness  to  all  the  best  in 
philosophy.  Origen  made  the  first  formal  attempt 
at  a  systematic  theology. 

The  two  schools  of  theology — the  older  at  Alex- 
andria and  the  younger  at  Antioch — deserve  a  word 
of  special  mention.  The  Alexandrian  was  specula- 
tive, open  to  truth  everywhere,  and  inclined  to  al- 
legory. The  Antiochan  was  more  critical  and  coldly 
rational.  The  allegorical  tendency  of  the  Alexan- 
drians and  the  rationalistic  tendency  of  the  An- 
tiochans  needed  checking,  for  the  sake  of  the  best 
results.     The  Alexandrian  school,  however,  repre- 


The;  Times  o£  Athanasius.  29 

sented  the  most  vital  theological  thinking  of  the 
time,  and  gave  forth  much  of  permanent  value. 

We  must  never  lose  the  sense  of  the  immanence 
of  God,  of  openness  to  all  truth,  of  the  significance 
of  the  incarnation,  and  of  the  freedom  of  man, 
which  belonged  to  the  Alexandrian  school. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  give  the  reader  the 
necessary  historical  and  theological  background  of 
the  life  of  Athanasius.  The  world  was  still  held 
fast  in  the  power  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The 
Church  had  three  centuries  of  history  behind  it,  and 
it  was  just  emerging  in  triumph  from  long  persecu- 
tion. It  had  waged  literary  battle  with  paganism 
and  within  itself  had  fought  and  conquered  Gnosti- 
cism and  monarchianism.  The  Church  was  about  to 
become  a  great  political  as  well  as  a  spiritual  power, 
and  was  ready  to  face  new  issues. 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE   CITY   OF  ATHANASIUS. 

The  city  of  Alexandria  was  more  than  six  hun- 
dred years  old  when  Athanasius  was  born.  The 
world  conquerer,  Alexander,  had  founded  the  city, 
and  had  given  it  his  own  name.  Tradition  says  that 
the  site  was  suggested  to  him  by  a  dream,  in  which 
an  old  man  appeared,  and  quoted  some  lines  from 
Homer,  which  directed  his  attention  to  the  place. 
It  is  more  probable,  if  less  poetic,  that  his  keen  eye 
saw  the  strategic  possibilities  of  the  position,  as  a 
future  mart  for  the  nations,  and  that  he  seized  upon 
it  for  this  reason.  Another  tradition  has  it,  that 
when  the  city  was  laid  out  part  of  its  boundaries 
were  marked  with  flour,  which  birds  came  and  de- 
voured. At  first  Alexander  was  inclined  to  regard 
this  as  a  bad  omen,  but  he  was  led  to  see  in  it  a 
symbol  of  the  city's  future  commercial  prosperity. 

Alexandria  was  situated  on  the  Mediterranean, 
with  Lake  Mareotis  to  the  south.  This  lake  con- 
nected with  the  Nile,  and  made  the  city  a  natural 
outlet  for  trade  up  the  river.    The  city  was  opposite 

3D 


Thk  City  of  Athanasius.  31 

to  the  island  Pharos,  with  its  great  marble  light-  1 
house — one  of  the  wonders  of  the  ancient  world. 
In  the  original  plan  the  city  was  in  form  like  a 
Macedonian  cloak.  The  two  principal  streets 
crossed  each  other  at  right  angles.  There  was  in 
the  city  an  Egyptian  quarter,  a  Greek  quarter,  and 
a  Jewish  quarter.  The  three  elements,  Egyptian, 
Jewish,  and  Greek,  formed  its  essential  features  as 
to  population. 

Under  the  Ptolemies  the  city  became  one  of 
great  grandeur,  and  a  center  of  literary  and  com- 
mercial activity.  Its  zenith  of  greatness  had  been 
reached  when  Rome  began  to  take  a  part  in  its  af- 
fairs, in  the  time  of  Cleopatra,  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury before  the  birth  of  Christ.  From  this  time 
began  its  decline.  Under  Roman  control  it  had  a 
checkered  history.  The  terrible  massacre  under 
Caracalla  was  but  one  of  the  occasions  when  the 
iron  heel  of  Rome  trod  heavily  upon  it.  Even  in 
the  empire,  however,  the  power  of  the  city  had  been 
felt.  Vespasian  had  been  proclaimed  emperor  by 
the  Alexandrians.  And  wise  statesmen  felt  that 
Alexandria  must  be  considered  and  reckoned  with  in 
their  plans.  This  was  true  even  in  the  time  of  Con- 
stantine,  when  Constantinople  became  its  rival,  and 
more  of  its  prestige  was  lost. 


32  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

Thus  we  see  that  when  Athanasius  lived,  it  was 
still  a  great  and  powerful  city,  even  if  a  city  in  slow 
decay. 

Its  past  was  ready  to  speak  very  eloquently  to  an 
impressionable  mind.  Into  its  warehouses  had  been 
brought  the  treasures  of  the  nations.  It  had  be- 
come the  exchange  center  between  the  East  and 
the  West.  Ships  bearing  rich  cargoes  came  into  it 
from  every  clime.  Wealth  had  thus  poured  into  its 
coffers.  And  the  city  had  been  made  very  beauti- 
ful. In  the  fourth  century  much  of  this  beauty  be- 
came only  a  memory,  but  its  palaces,  its  temples,  and 
its  halls  of  learning  had  previously  made  themselves 
the  admiration  of  the  world. 

Then  Alexandria  was  a  great  intellectual  cen- 
ter. It  had  come  to  stand  for  the  best  of  Greek 
culture.  Here  philosophers,  poets,  and  artists  lived 
and  flourished.  As  the  East  and  West  met  com- 
mercially, so  they  met  intellectually  at  Alexandria. 
Its  enormous  library  was  a  vast  warehouse  of  in- 
tellectual treasures.  As  a  center  of  learning  it  be- 
came pre-eminent.  The  ambitious  youth  who  de- 
sired to  master  the  best  of  the  culture  of  the  past, 
could  not  do  better  than  to  go  to  the  city,  the  light 
of  whose  learning  shone  out  like  the  light  of  its 
own  Pharos,  full  of  brightness  and  illumination. 

Here  it  was  that  Judaism  made  its  great  effort 


The:  City  of  Athanasius.  33 

to  become  cosmopolitan.  The  Old  Testament  was 
first  translated  into  Greek  in  Alexandria,  and  the 
resulting  version — the  Septuagint — won  its  way  to 
such  popularity  that  it  seems  to  have  been  the  form 
in  which  the  ordinary  Palestinian  Jews  read  the  Old 
Testament  in  the  time  of  Christ.  In  Philo  of  Alex- 
andria the  attempt  was  made  to  harmonize  Judaism 
and  Greek  philosophy.  This  movement  to  Hellen- 
ize  Judaism  was  the  outcome  of  the  very  intellectual 
mood  of  Alexandria. 

Then  the  city  had  become  a  center  of  Christian 
learning.  It  was  the  home  of  Origen,  and  of  Clem- 
ent. Here  Christianity,  too,  shoWed  itself  hospitable 
to  Greek  learning.  The  spirit  of  eclecticism  was 
in  the  very  air.  The  Greek  theology  is  by  no  means 
complete.  Its  conclusions  were  not  always  wise. 
But,  notwithstanding  this,  its  work  was  extremely 
valuable.  The  Church  has  lessons  to  learn  from  it 
even  yet.  And  Alexandria  was  the  center  of  the 
Greek  theology. 

The  Christian  Church  had  felt  the  heavy  hand 
of  persecution  in  the  Egyptian  metropolis,  and  had 
there  won  its  way  through  suffering.  It  had  a  herit- 
age of  Christian  living,  as  well  as  of  Christian 
thinking. 

The  people  of  Alexandria  have  been  called  the 
3 


34  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

Parisians  of  the  ancient  world.  An  eager,  alert,  ex- 
citable people  they  were.  The  mobs  of  Alexandria 
were  easily  stirred,  and  very  violent.  The  city  was 
often  rent  by  its  own  passions.  At  one  time  we  are 
told  that  different  sections  warred  with  each  other 
for  twelve  years. 

Such  was  the  home  of  Athanasius.  If  any  city 
in  the  world  deserved  at  that  time  to  be  called  cos- 
mopolitan, surely  it  was  Alexandria.  What  a 
wealth  of  influences  poured  upon  the  life  of  every 
man  within  its  pale.  To  live  here  was  to  meet  the 
world.  Life  was  full  of  movement  and  stir.  The 
eye,  the  mind,  the  sense  of  beauty,  the  love  of  com- 
merce, the  passion  for  pleasure, — all  were  ap- 
pealed to. 

New  days  and  new  influences  were  now  to  come. 
In  the  fourth  century  Alexandria  was  to  have  one 
supremely  great  character.  The  city  which  Alex- 
ander had  founded,  and  where  he  had  been  buried ; 
the  city  of  the  Ptolemies,  with  their  commerce  and 
their  patronage  of  the  arts  and  letters ;  the  city  of 
the  voluptuous  Cleopatra ;  the  city  of  a  heathen  wor- 
ship, with  a  temple  unsurpassed  in  the  world;  the 
city  of  a  vigorous  and  noble  Christian  theology, 
represented  by  Origen  and  Clement;  was  now  to 
become  the  city  of  one  most  powerful  and  impress- 
ive character,— the  Christian  bishop  Athanasius. 


CHAPTER  III. 
THE  EARLY  LIFE  OF  ATHANASIUS. 

We  have  no  authentic  record  of  the  birth  of 
Athanasius.  The  general  opinion,  however,  is  that 
he  was  born  somewhere  between  296  and  298  A.  D. 
The  reasons  may  be  briefly  summarized.  He  could 
not  have  been  born  earlier,  for  he  had  no  recollec- 
tion of  the  persecution  occurring  in  303,  and  he 
seemed  so  young  at  the  time  when  he  was  made 
bishop  (328  A.  D.)  that  his  enemies  claimed  that 
he  was  under  the  canonical  age  of  thirty.  He  could 
not  have  been  born  later,  for  he  was  taught  in 
theology  by  some  who  became  martyrs  in  311  A.  D. 
Then  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Arian  controversy 
in  319  he  had  written  two  works  which  show 
theological  acumen  and  maturity.  It  is  pleasant 
to  believe  that  he  was  born  in  Alexandria,  the  city 
so  profoundly  associated  with  his  name.  During 
his  lifetime  we  know  that  Alexandria  was  spoken  of 
as  his  "native  home." 

Of  his  family  we  know  practically  nothing, 
though  according  to  writers  later  than  his  own 

35 


36  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

time,  they  were  of  hjgh  rank  and  wealthy.  His  own 
means  appear  to  have  been  small,  from  a  statement 
made  by  himself. 

Athanasius  was  a  Greek  in  attitude  and  training, 
if  not  by  blood,  and  there  seems  no  good  reason  to 
doubt  that  he  belonged  to  the  Greek  race  also. 

We  are  to  think  of  him  then  as  passing  his 
childhood  in  days  when  the  dark  shadow  of  perse- 
cution fell  across  the  pathway  of  the  Church,  his 
young  blood  stirred  by  stories  of  heroism  and  mar- 
tyrdom, and  the  very  sights  and  sounds  of  terrible 
persecution.  To  be  taught  by  men  who  gave  their 
lives  for  Christ  would  profoundly  impress  any  sen- 
sitive nature,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  these  early 
years  wrote  their  lesson  deeply  upon  the  life  of 
Athanasius. 

There  is  some  evidence  pointing  to  a  personal 
connection  between  the  youth  and  the  great  monk, 
Antony.  Though  not  at  all  certain  this  would  fit  in 
with  the  great  sympathy  Athanasius  always  felt  for 
Asceticism. 

Antony  was  a  man  of  unusual  personal  attract- 
iveness, as  well  as  sanctity,  and  would  leave  his 
mark  upon  the  lad  who  served  him.  And  there 
would  be  singular  impressiveness  in  the  solitudes 
and  sacred  silences  of  the  desert  life  of  the  hermit 


The;  Early  Life;  of  Athanasius.  37 

to  a  boy  accustomed  to  the  city,  with  its  glare,  noise, 
and  vice. 

One  story,  of  somewhat  doubtful  authenticity, 
has  come  to  us  regarding  the  boyhood  of  Athana- 
sius. It  is  said  that  one  day  Alexander,  Bishop  of 
Alexandria,  was  expecting  some  of  the  clergy  to 
take  dinner  with  him  in  a  house  overlooking  the  sea. 
Looking  out  of  his  window,  he  became  interested 
in  some  boys  playing  on  the  shore.  He  saw  that 
they  were  imitating  some  of  the  rites  of  the  Church. 
Thinking  at  last  that  they  were  carrying  their  imi- 
tation of  Churchly  ordinances  too  far,  he  sent  some 
of  the  clergy  to  bring  them  to  him.  Upon  being 
questioned,  the  boys  were  at  first  frightened  and 
denied  everything.  Then  they  were  led  to  confess 
that  one  of  them  had  taken  the  part  of  bishop  and 
had  baptized  others  who  took  the  part  of  catechu- 
mens. Bishop  Alexander  found  that  all  had  been 
done  in  regular  order,  and  was  so  much  impressed 
that  it  was  decided  the  baptisms  should  stand  as 
valid,  and  that  the  parents  of  the  boy  bishop  and 
his  clergy  should  be  instructed  to  have  them  trained 
for  the  Church's  service.  The  boy  bishop  was 
Athanasius,  and  after  preliminary  study,  he  entered 
the  service  of  Bishop  Alexander  himself. 

This  quaint  old  story,  while  perhaps  not  to  be 


38  Athanasius  :  the:  Hero. 

taken  at  face  value,  at  least  suggests  that  Athana- 
sius early  manifested  precocity  in  the  things  of  God 
and  the  Church.  And  this  one  may  readily  believe. 
The  boy  on  the  seashore  baptizing  other  boys,  is  a 
picturesque  prefigurement  of  the  great  Christian 
bishop  of  later  years. 

As  to  the  intellectual  training  of  Athanasius, 
though  he  speaks  slightingly  of  his  own  attainments, 
it  is  evident  that  he  was  a  man  of  real  and  generous 
culture.  He  is  ready  to  quote  Greek  literature,  he 
is  at  home  in  the  movements  of  Greek  philosophy. 
He  is  said  to  have  attended  classes  in  grammar  and 
rhetoric,  and  it  has  even  been  stated  that  he  studied 
law.  But  whatever  the  interest  of  Athanasius  in 
the  learning  of  his  time,  his  devotion  was  the  Bible. 
This  book  was  his  great  university.  One  finds  the 
peculiar  Christian  mood  in  the  whole  relation  of 
Athanasius  to  the  Bible.  Here  was  his  wisdom,  and 
here  his  great  teacher. 

Theologically,  he  was  thoroughly  trained,  and 
later  years  proved  how  consummately  he  could 
wield  the  sword  in  theological  controversy.  But 
he  did  not  delight  in  mere  polemics.  He  did  not 
want  to  fight  merely  for  the  sake  of  fighting.  It 
was  the  truth,  as  it  is  in  Christ,  that  he  loved ;  and 
for  it  he  thought  with  all  the  power  of  a  mental 


The  Early  Em  of  Athanasius.  39 

equipment  of  unusual  strength ;  and  for  it  he  fought 
with  all  the  chivalrous  heroism  of  a  knight  in  armor. 
After  some  preliminary  training,  Athanasius 
was  received  into  the  house  of  the  bishop  Alexander, 
and  as  a  member  of  his  household  unique  oppor- 
tunities came  to  him.  Alexander  as  the  second 
bishop  in  Christendom,  with  widely  wielded  power 
and  influence,  was  the  center  of  many  currents  in 
the  throbbing  life  of  the  Eastern  Church.  Already 
Athanasius  may  have  received  a  preliminary  bent 
from  the  teaching  of  Peter,  previously  bishop  of 
Alexandria,  regarding  Him  who  being  "by  nature 
God,  became  by  nature  man."  His  theology  was 
becoming  Christo-centric,  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
complex  life  of  the  city  and  the  interests  and  ex- 
citements of  an  ecclesiastic  center,  Athanasius  kept 
this  deep  sense  of  Christ,  and  his  place  in  thought 
and  life.  How  easy  it  would  have  been  for  him  to 
have  degenerated  into  a  mere  ecclesiastic !  What 
a  perilous  position  to  a  young  man  to  be  the  favorite 
of  the  second  greatest  bishop  in  the  Church !  How 
easy,  if  he  had  lacked  moral  robustness,  and  loyalty 
to  the  deep  meaning  of  his  inner  life,  for  him  to 
have  gone  through  a  process  of  moral  and  spiritual 
degeneration.  No  one  has  told  the  story  of  the 
subtle  temptations  which  came  to  him  during  those 


40  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

testing  years.  Xo  one  has  written  of  his  struggles. 
But  we  may  be  sure  of  both  the  temptations  and 
struggles.  And  we  may  be  sure  that  he  emerged 
from  them  with  new  depth  and  reality  to  his  life  as 
a  Christian  and  as  a  man. 

So  when  we  find  Athanasius  ordained  deacon 
and  made  chief  of  the  deacons  of  Alexandria,  we 
are  to  think  of  his  promotion,  not  as  the  result  of 
clever  machinations  on  the  part  of  an  ambitious 
young  ecclesiastic,  but  the  deserved  reward  of  faith- 
ful service,  and  the  recognition  of  unusual  ability. 

As  a  very  young  man,  Athanasius  essayed  au- 
thorship, and  he  did  his  work  with  rare  skill.  His 
work  "Against  the  Heathen,"  and  the  sequel,  "On 
the  Incarnation,"  can  not  be  placed  later  than  318 
A.  D. 

Athanasius  was  between  twenty  and  twenty-three 
years  of  age  at  this  time.  Think  of  writing  a  theo- 
logical masterpiece  at  twenty-three ! 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  get  the  point  of  view  of  a 
man  who  is  fighting  heathenism,  intrenched  in  the 
very  life  of  society.  This  was  the  battle  of  the  early 
Christian  apologists.  And  in  this  conflict  Athana- 
sius takes  his  share.  In  his  work  "Against  the 
Heathen"  he  vigorously  attacks  the  whole  structure 
of    paganism.       This  he  does  to  make  room  for 


The:  Early  Life:  of  Athanasius.  41 

Christ.  Other  things  are  preparatory  to  exalting 
Christ  and  His  cross.  It  is  an  interesting  thing  to 
enter  the  lists  of  long  ago,  with  this  young  man,  so 
eager  to  attack  falsehood  and  to  defend  the  faith. 
He  begins  with  the  very  nature  of  evil,  insisting 
that  it  is  not  a  natural  part  of  life,  and  is  not  the 
result  of  dualism  in  the  world.  Evil  results  from 
the  misuse  of  free  will. 

The  vials  of  his  wrath  are  poured  out  upon  idol- 
atry, and  the  wealth  of  his  scorn  on  the  innumerable 
mythologies  of  heathenism.  The  arguments  for 
idolatry  are  held  up,  then  struck  remorselessly  to 
the  ground,  while  the  horror  of  human  sacrifice  and 
the  immorality  of  paganism  are  given  as  proof  that 
its  fruits  are  evil. 

Nature  is  not  to  be  confused  with  God.  Rather 
does  nature  reveal  God.  As  the  masterpiece  of  art 
suggests  the  artist  who  made  it,  so  nature  points 
to  God. 

The  soul,  its  immortality,  its  power  to  know 
God,  except  for  sin,  and  even  then  its  power  to 
know  him  through  creation,  are  insisted  upon. 

The  work  is  an  apologetic  for  the  immanent  God, 
distinct  from  nature,  and  ruling  it  with  constant 
intelligence  and  complete  power. 

Behind  this  work  we  feel  a  mind  of  real  strength, 


42  Athanasius  :  the;  Hero. 

of  quick  alertness,  and  a  large  outlook  on  the  life 
and  thought  of  the  time.  There  is  an  elevation  of 
tone  about  the  work  and  a  certain  ease  and  balance 
of  style  which  command  the  respect  of  the  reader. 
It  is  an  old  battle  into  whose  strife  we  are  brought, 
and  a  fought-out  battle.  But  to  Athanasius  it  was  a 
very  real  battle,  and  he  used  his  weapons  well. 

In  his  work  "On  the  Incarnation,"  Athanasius 
comes  to  deal  with  Christianity  itself.  But  he  has 
a  taste  for  a  well  rounded  statement.  So  he  begins 
with  the  Creation,  then  the  creation  of  man,  and 
what  he  lost  through  sin  in  relation  to  life  and 
knowledge.  To  restore  what  man  has  lost  you  need 
the  Incarnation. 

There  is  an  extended  treatment  of  the  death  and 
resurrection  of  Christ,  showing  how  these  were  part 
and  parcel  of  what  he  was  to  do  for  men.  Now 
Athanasius  feels  that  he  has  come  to  the  center  of 
the  faith.  It  has  been  a  long  way — from  the  attack 
of  heathenism  to  the  uplifting  of  Christ  crucified 
and  resurrected — but  this  is  the  goal  of  the  journey. 
To  unbelieving  Jews  he  insists  that  this  is  the  goal 
toward  which  their  own  Scriptures  move.  To  un- 
believing Greeks  he  declares  that  their  own  philo- 
sophical principles  leave  room  for  an  incarnation. 
And  once  and  again  he  joyously  insists  on  one  great 
argument,  the  effect  of  Christianity  on  the  lives  of 


The:  Early  Life;  of  Athanasius.  43 

individual  men  and  women,  and  on  the  race  at  large. 
Transformed  lives  and  a  society  in  process  of  trans- 
formation, are  facts  with  which  the  opponent  of 
Christianity  must  deal.  "What  hath  Christianity 
wrought!"  expresses  in  a  sentence  his  triumphant 
plea.  The  Incarnation,  the  atoning  death  of  Christ, 
the  resurrection,  all  become  credible  in  the  light  of 
Christ's  power  in  the  lives  of  men. 

What  a  Christian  outlook  this  young  theologian 
of  the  fourth  century  possessed.  He  looked  over 
the  wastes  of  heathenism,  the  barren  places  of  phi- 
losophy, the  rigid  fruitlessness  of  Judaism,  and  then 
turning  from  all  this  he  looked  upon  the  fertile  fields 
of  his  own  faith.  And  all  this  wonder  of  new  life, 
all  this  fertility,  he  traced  with  unerring  instinct  to 
the  incarnate,  dying,  risen  Christ. 

The  future  might  be  uncertain  to  this  young 
Alexandrian.  But  he  was  well  equipped.  He  un- 
derstood the  adequacy  of  Christ.  And  he  under- 
stood the  failure  of  everything  else.  It  is  good  to 
think  of  his  trained  and  polished  mind.  It  is  good 
to  think  of  his  innate  ability  and  strength.  It  is  best 
to  think  of  his  Christian  insight.  This  insight  came 
from  a  life  which  out  of  struggle  had  found  its  goal 
in  Christ.  As  long  as  the  incarnate  Son  of  God 
was  at  the  center  of  his  life  and  thought,  all  really 
important  things  in  the  future  would  be  secure. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  RISE  OF  ARIANISM  AND  THE  COUN- 
CIL OF  NICSEA. 

Xo  theological  conflict  in  the  history  of  the 
Church  has  exceeded  in  importance  the  struggle 
with  Arianism.  Of  this  conflict  Athanasius  was 
the  hero.  To  it  he  gave  the  energy  of  his  life,  the 
skill  of  his  intellect,  and  the  devotion  of  his  heart. 
To  save  the  faith  was  his  ambition,  and  no  personal 
motive  caused  him  for  a  moment  to  be  disloyal  to 
this  great  endeavor. 

We  must  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  rise  of 
Arianism,  and  at  the  very  beginning  we  need  to 
remind  ourselves  of  the  attitude  with  which  we 
should  approach  the  study  of  a  great  heresy.  Men 
once  thought  of  heresies  as  undiluted  evils,  inspired 
by  the  Prince  of  Evil.  Now  we  have  learned  bet- 
ter. "A  heresy  is  usually  a  genuine  hunger  eating 
the  wrong  fruit." 

It  is  quite  as  important  to  understand  a  heresy 
as  to  condemn  it.  And  often  there  are  truths  dis- 
proportionately, and  without  true  perspective,  ex- 

44 


The  Rise  of  Arianism.  45 

pressed  in  even  the  greatest  heresies.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  were  false  and  imperfect  attitudes  out 
of  which  false  teaching  grew,  and  with  some  men 
the  very  fascination  of  a  particular  heresy  might 
be  that  they  believed  it  to  make  room  for  that  in 
their  own  lives,  which  was  really  false  and  evil. 

In  the  study  of  Arianism,  then,  we  may  expect 
to  find  that  its  root  was  in  real  problems  which  puz- 
zled earnest  men,  and  that  its  testimony  was  not  al- 
together without  relation  to  what  was  actually  true. 
This  we  will  need  to  keep  clearly  in  mind  in  order 
to  be  just  when  we  see  how  fundamentally  wrong 
and  how  full  of  dire  possibilities  for  the  faith  Arian- 
ism as  a  whole  really  was. 

The  Church  at  Alexandria  had  learned  to 
dread  one  theological  danger,  Sabellianism. 
Now  Sabellianism,  as  we  have  seen,  stood 
for  the  unity  of  God,  at  the  expense  of 
the  reality  of  the  Trinity.  One  God  with  three 
manifestations  was  its  standpoint.  It  left  no  room 
for  personal  distinctions  in  the  Godhead.  It  was 
one  God  who  made  himself  known,  now  as  Father, 
now  as  Son,  and  now  as  Holy  Ghost,  according  to 
the  Sabellians.  They  were  not  willing  to  admit 
three  persons  in  the  Godhead,  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Ghost. 


46  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

Now,  the  very  fact  that  men  had  learned  to 
dread  this  danger,  made  it  possible  that  they  would 
receive  the  directly  opposite  error  with  open  arms. 
And  the  directly  opposite  error  was  Arianism,  which 
so  emphasized  the  personality  of  the  Son  that  it 
really  got  Him  out  of  the  Godhead  altogether. 

But  there  was  a  deeper  reason  for  the  attractive- 
ness of  Arianism.  It  had  taken  the  world  a  long 
time  to  learn  the  lesson  of  Monotheism.  But  it  was 
beginning  to  learn  it.  The  unique  dignity  and 
adequacy  of  the  conception  of  one  true  God  was 
beginning  to  dawn  upon  the  minds  of  men.  When 
they  contrasted  the  infinite  number  of  pagan  gods 
with  the  Great  Only  One  of  the  Jews,  the  advan- 
tage was  quite  evidently  with  the  latter.  A  type  of 
mind  which  reacted  from  Polytheism  was  being 
produced.  Just  this  type  of  mind  was  both  at- 
tracted and  puzzled  by  the  doctrines  of  Christianity. 
Its  lofty  Monotheism  was  very  attractive.  But  did 
it  actually  have  a  Monotheism  to  offer  after  all? 
What  about  the  Divine  Son,  and  the  Divine  Spirit, 
professed  as  a  part  of  the  Christian  faith?  Could 
one  believe  in  these  in  such  a  way  that  the  unity  of 
God  was  perfectly  protected?  It  was  a  difficult 
problem  enough,  and  no  wonder  that  men's  minds 
were  staggered  by  it.  Arianism  was  an  attempt  to 
solve  the  problem.     It  saved  the  unity  of  God  by 


The:  Risk  of4  Arianism.  47 

sacrificing  the  actual  divinity  of  the  Son.  It  was  a 
poor  solution.  It  cost  too  much.  But  it  was  not 
strange  that  many  earnest  men  did  not  see  this  then 
and  accepted  the  solution  with  eagerness  and  relief. 

There  was  still  another  reason  which  drew  men 
to  Arianism.  A  widespread  philosophical  attitude 
made  men  think  of  God,  not  only  as  the  Infinitely 
High,  but  as  the  Infinitely  Far.  There  was  a 
tendency  to  so  exalt  God  as  to  put  Him  out  of 
reach  of  humanity.  There  was  a  philosophical  be- 
lief in  a  God  infinitely  removed. 

This  had  expressed  itself  already  in  the  Church, 
in  the  teachings  of  the  Gnostics.  The  Gnostic  as- 
serted that  God  was  so  high  that  He  needed  inter- 
mediaries between  Himself  and  the  world.  He 
made  and  governed  the  world  through  them.  It 
had  even  been  asserted  that  the  Jehovah  of  the 
Jews  was  such  an  intermediary  of  the  Really  Most 
High. 

Gnosticism  was  repudiated  by  the  Church,  but 
the  feeling  of  God's  remoteness  still  remained.  And 
this  feeling  found  itself  answered  to  in  Arianism. 

According  to  Arianism,  the  Son,  high  as  He  wasj 
was  infinitely  lower  than  the  Father.  He  did  not 
even  understand  the  Father.  He  was  the  great  in- 
termediary between  the  Father  and  the  world. 


48  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

What  has  been  said  will  help  us  to  see  how  pro- 
foundly related  Arianism  was  to  the  human  mind 
and  to  the  thought  of  the  time.  It  was  no  accident, 
but  a  natural  outgrowth,  of  the  Church's  grapple 
with  the  problem  of  its  Lord — an  outgrowth  to  be 
studied,  condemned,  and  then  uprooted.  And  this 
is  what  the  Church  set  about  doing  when  it  became 
really  conscious  of  what  Arianism  meant. 

Arius  himself  is  said  to  have  been  a  native  of 
Libya.  He  belonged  to  the  school  of  Antioch,  and 
was  a  pupil  of  Lucian.  It  is  not  improbable  that  in 
the  teachings  of  Lucian  there  were  elements  which 
fructified  in  later  Arianism.  Arius  came  to  Alex- 
andria and  is  said  for  a  time  to  have  allied  himself 
with  the  Meletians,  who  were  a  strong  schismatic 
party.  This  resulted  in  his  deposition  by  Peter, 
Bishop  of  Alexandria,  who  had  ordained  him  dea- 
con. Later  he  became  reconciled  to  Achillas,  the 
successor  of  Peter,  and  was  made  presbyter  and  put 
in  charge  of  an  important  Church.  When  the  see 
of  Alexandria  became  vacant  he  was  prominent 
enough  to  be  a  significant  rival  of  Alexander.  The 
latter  was  elected,  however,  according  to  some  tes- 
timony, Arius  chivalrously  transferring  his  vote  to 
Alexander. 

About  the  year  319,  the  flames  of  controversy 


The  Rise  of  Arianism.  49 

burst  out.  The  very  beginning  of  the  controversy 
is  veiled  in  obscurity,  but  Arius  is  said  to  have  ac- 
cused Alexander  of  Sabellian  tendencies,  and  to- 
have  asserted  that  there  must  have  been  a  time  when 
the  Son  was  not. 

Alexander  seems  to  have  been  inclined  to  be 
very  patient  at  first,  but  as  the  views  of  Arius  gained 
hold  on  the  minds  of  men,  the  bishop  sent  him  a 
letter,  signed  by  most  of  the  clergy  of  Alexandria 
(Athanasius  among  them)  in  which  he  endeavored 
to  lead  Arius  to  give  up  his  views.  This  letter  was 
ineffective,  however,  and  Alexander  summoned  a 
synod  of  the  bishops  of  Egypt  and  Libya  and  de- 
posed Arius  and  his  followers. 

It  will  be  worth  our  while  to  see  exactly  what 
were  the  views  of  Arius  at  this  time,  according  to 
those  who  condemned  him.  Here  is  the  statement 
given  in  the  encyclical  letter  of  Alexander,  writ- 
ten at  this  time. 

"The  novelties  they  [Arius  and  his  followers] 
have  invented  and  put  forth  contrary  to  the  Scrip- 
tures are  these  following :  God  was  not  always  a 
Father,  but  there  was  a  time  when  God  was  not  a 
Father.  The  Word  of  God  was  not  always,  but 
originated  from  things  that  were  not ;  for  God  that 
is  has  made  him  that  was  not,  of  that  which  was  not ; 


50  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

wherefore  there  was  a  time  when  He  was  not;  for 
the  Son  is  a  creature  and  a  work ;  neither  is  He  like 
in  essence  to  the  Father ;  neither  is  He  the  true  and 
natural  word  of  the  Father ;  neither  is  He  His  true 
wisdom;  but  He  is  one  of  the  things  made  and 
created,  and  is  called  the  Word  and  Wisdom  by  an 
abuse  of  terms,  since  He  himself  originated  by  the 
proper  Word  of  God,  and  by  the  Wisdom  that  is  in 
God,  by  which  God  has  made  not  only  all  other 
things,  but  Him  also.  Wherefore  He  is  by  nature 
subject  to  change  and  variation,  as  are  all  rational 
creatures.  And  the  Word  is  foreign  from  the  es- 
sence of  the  Father  and  is  alien  and  separated 
therefrom.  And  the  Father  can  not  be  described  by 
the  Son,  for  the  Word  does  not  know  the  Father 
perfectly  and  accurately,  neither  can  He  see  Him 
perfectly.  Moreover  the  Son  knows  not  His  own 
essence  as  it  really  is;  for  He  is  made  for  us,  that 
God  might  create  us  by  Him,  as  by  an  instrument; 
and  He  would  not  have  existed  had  not  God  wished 
to  create  us.  Accordingly,  when  some  one  asked 
then,  whether  the  WTord  of  God  can  possibly  change, 
as  the  devil  changed,  they  were  not  afraid  to  say 
that  He  can ;  for  being  something  made  and  created, 
His  nature  is  subject  to  change."1 


1  Exposition  of  Arius.     Cf.  Nicene  and   Post-Nicene  fathers.     Second 
Series,  Vol,  4,  page  70. 


The:  Rise:  op*  Arianism.  51 

This  early  summary  of  the  views  of  Arius  is  all 
the  more  interesting,  as  it  has  been  ascribed  to 
Athanasius,  who  was  so  near  to  his  bishop  during 
this  period. 

For  holding  these  views  then,  Arius  and  his  fol- 
lowers were  deposed. 

But  it  was  to  take  far  more  than  a  synod's  de- 
cision to  overthrow  Arius.  He  had  a  point  of  view 
full  of  attraction  to  many  minds,  and  he  was 
the  man  to  make  it  more  attractive.  A  man  of 
grave  and  blameless  life,  with  the  bearing  of  an 
ascetic,  he  appealed  to  the  imagination  of  the 
Church.  He  had  unusual  powers  of  personal  fasci- 
nation, which  became  part  of  his  equipment  for  his 
great  conflict.  Then  Arius  was  very  clever,  and 
very  astute.  A  striking  evidence  of  this  is  the  way 
in  which  he  set  about  to  popularize  his  views.  They 
were  even  put  into  the  form  of  songs,  with  catching 
airs,  so  that  the  very  street  song  became  the  vehicle 
for  the  spread  of  Arianism. 

Thus  what  had  been  a  local  dispute  spread  and 
spread  until  the  whole  Eastern  Church  was  involved 
in  the  controversy.  At  this  stage  it  was  brought  to 
the  attention  of  the  Emperor  Constantine. 

To  the  statesman  emperor,  part  heathen,  part 
Christian,  such  a  controversy  seemed  but  a  battle 


. 


4 


52  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

about  words.  It  ought  to  be  ended  at  once  for  the 
good  of  the  empire,  and  so  he  tried  to  deal  with  it, 
first  in  a  summary,  but  kindly  way. 

Hosius,  Bishop  of  Cordova,  a  man  venerated 
and  distinguished,  whom  we  shall  meet  once  and 
again  in  these  pages,  was  sent  with  a  letter  from 
the  emperor  to  Alexander  and  Arius,  begging  them 
to  drop  the  controversy,  each  to  hold  to  his  own 
opinion,  and  not  to  disturb  further  the  peace  of  the 
Church.  This  seemed  a  simple  solution,  but  it  was 
a  solution  which  would  not  solve.  It  became  evi- 
dent to  Hosius  of  Cordova  that  the  situation  had 
profounder  root  and  involved  far  more  actual  diffi- 
culty than  the  emperor  at  all  supposed.  Here  was 
a  controversy  which  could  not  be  brought  to  an  end 
by  a  gesture  of  the  imperial  hand.  It  was,  too,  a 
controversy  full  of  distraction  to  the  Church,  and 
boding  ill  for  the  future.  This  was  made  evident  to 
the  emperor.  What  was  to  be  done?  Constantine 
was  a  statesman.  He  saw  things  in  large  relations, 
and  liked  to  do  things  in  large,  impressive  ways.  So 
at  this  juncture  he  seized  with  eagerness  upon  a 
great  idea — the  idea  of  a  council  of  the  whole 
Church. 

There  were  other  vexing  ecclesiastical  problems, 
such  as  the  controversy  about  the  date  of  Easter 


The;  Rise  of  Arianism.  53 

and  the  Meletian  schism.  All  could  be  brought  for 
decision  to  the  great  ecumenical  council.  If  the 
voice  of  the  whole  Church  spoke,  surely  it  would 
be  decisive.  So  it  came  about  that  the  first  general 
council  of  the  Church  was  called,  and  met  at  Nicsea, 
in  Bithynia,  in  the  year  325  A.  D. 

Bishops  from  all  parts  of  the  Church — predomi- 
nantly from  the  East — hastened  to  Nicsea  at  the  em- 
peror's bidding.  It  was  an  impressive  sight.  Men 
who  spoke  various  languages,  and  represented  wide 
differences  of  culture  and  station,  old  and  young, 
those  scarred  by  persecution,  and  men  untouched  by 
danger — all  met  here  to  represent  the  Church.  As 
related  to  Arius  and  his  views,  there  were  three 
classes  of  persons  at  the  council.  First  a  few  out 
and  out  Arians — Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Nicomedia, 
typical  of  them.  Second,  a  small  number  of  con- 
vinced, far-sighted  opponents  of  the  views  of  Arius 
— Alexander,  his  young  archdeacon  Athanasius,  and 
Hosius,  representative  of  them;  and  third,  a  great 
mass  of  men  with  a  thorough  loyalty  to  the  faith, 
as  they  understood  it,  but  without  any  adequate 
philosophical  equipment  to  deal  with  such  a  problem 
as  this.  With  all  his  ecclesiastical  importance,  we 
shall  probably  best  place  Eusebius  of  Csesarea,  in 
this  class.     Some  things  about  the  council  do  not 


54  Athanasius  :  the;  Hero. 

form  very  pleasant  reading.  The  mutual  accusa- 
tions of  the  bishops — put  into  writing  and  given  to 
the  emperor  and  by  him  destroyed  unread,  make  us 
feel  how  exceedingly  human  these  ecclesiastical 
leaders  were. 

Constantine,  with  all  the  dazzle  of  his  imperial 
regalia,  the  impressiveness  of  his  person,  the  sense 
of  his  power,  and  the  feeling  of  what  he  had  done 
for  the  Church,  made  a  great  impression  on  the 
members  of  the  council,  many  of  whom  were  quite 
unfamiliar  with  the  sights  characteristic  of  the  life 
of  courts.  And  the  emperor,  as  he  looked  upon  an 
assemblage  in  which  he  beheld  men  with  the  awful 
marks  of  persecution  upon  them,  felt  an  almost 
superstitious  reverence  for  these  representatives  of 
the  faith. 

The  Arians  had  come  to  the  council  with  a  good 
deal  of  confidence,  evidently  expecting  to  carry  all 
before  them.  But  in  regard  to  this  expectation  they 
found  unpleasant  disillusionment.  When  Eusebius 
of  Nicomedia,  ventured  to  offer  an  out  and  out 
Arian  creed  it  was  wrathfully  rejected  and  torn  to 
pieces.  The  majority  of  the  council  might  not  be 
theologians,  but  there  was  deep  and  real  Christian 
consciousness,  which  almost  instinctively  rejected 
bald  Arianism.     From  that  moment  it  was  evident 


The;  Rise:  of  Arianism.  55 

that  if  the  Arians  were  to  win  they  must  win  by- 
guile.  And  it  probably  did  not  appear  that  this 
would  be  very  difficult. 

There  is  a  difference  between  being  opposed  to 
a  thing  and  being  able  to  form  a  statement  which 
effectually  excludes  it.  The  council,  as  a  whole, 
was  opposed  to  Arianism.  But  right  at  the  point  of 
forming  a  creed  came  the  danger  that  it  would  be 
hoodwinked. 

Most  of  the  members  of  the  council  doubtless 
preferred  a  creed  expressed  in  Scriptural  language. 
But  just  here  they  came  upon  a  snare.  The  Arians 
could  interpret  the  language  of  the  Scripture  in 
their  own  way.  Their  whisperings  and  sly  nods  of 
mutual  comprehension  at  the  mention  of  particular 
passages,  made  this  evident. 

When  Eusebius  of  Csesarea  read  a  creed  famil- 
iar to  him  from  childhood,  all  could  agree  to  it,  but 
it  lacked  the  essential  quality  of  really  protecting 
the  Church  from  the  belief  the  council  was  con- 
demning. Constantine  suggested  the  insertion  of 
the  word  Homoousion  (of  one  essence).  This  word 
secured  the  belief  that  the  Son  was  not  a  creature, 
but  a  part  of  the  very  eternal  life  of  the  Godhead. 
The  suggestion  coming  doubtless  from  some  of  the 
clearsighted  anti-Arians,  was  eagerly  seized  upon 


56  Athanasius  :  the;  Hero. 

by  them.  The  creed  was  worked  over  and  made  an 
impregnable  fortress  against  Arianism,  and  then 
offered  to  the  council  for  acceptance. 

The  majority  were  hardly  ready  for  such  thor- 
oughgoing measures.  But  as  it  seemed  the  only  way 
to  protect  their  position,  practically  all  of  them 
signed  the  creed,  and  so  this  immortal  document  of 
Nicaea  was  adopted. 

To  understand  the  later  reaction,  we  must  keep 
in  mind  the  fact  that  the  creed  was  the  work  of  a 
clearsighted  minority,  while  the  majority,  clear- 
hearted  as  they  might  be,  were  by  no  means  so  clear- 
headed. Many  of  them  could  later  be  led  to  listen 
to  such  specious  suggestions  as  the  demand  for  only 
Scriptural  language  in  a  creed. 

For  the  time,  however,  the  avalanche  was  over- 
whelming. Even  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  in  das- 
tardly regard  for  his  own  temporal  well  being,  de- 
serted his  friend  Arius,  and  signed  the  creed. 

Arius  was  sent  into  exile.  His  writings  were 
burnt,  and  concealment  of  a  copy  of  his  writings 
was  made  a  capital  offense.  These  two  proceedings 
are  offensive  enough  to  the  modern  mind.  Exiling  a 
man  for  even  the  falsest  opinions  is  a  great  way  from 
our  standard  of  equity.  And  making  the  possession 
of  even  the  most  unwholesome  writings  a  capital 


The:  Rise;  of  Arianism.  57 

offense,  is  almost  inconceivable  to  us.  It  was  a  rude 
age,  and  used  rude  methods.  How  we  would  wel- 
come the  story,  if  we  were  told  of  even  one  bishop 
who,  with  Christian  charity,  pleaded  for  the  mild 
treatment  of  the  condemned  heretic.  Unhappily, 
history  tells  us  of  none. 

The  Council  of  Nicsea  was  an  epoch-making 
event  in  the  life  of  Athanasius.  At  the  time  of  this 
first  great  assembly  of  the  whole  Church,  his  elo- 
quence and  zeal  made  him  a  marked  man.  Here 
he  so  vigorously  opposed  the  Arians  that  he  made 
enemies,  who,  as  long  as  they  lived,  bayed  on  his 
track.  We  would  like  to  know  the  detailed  story  of 
the  young  Alexandrian  archdeacon's  part  in  the 
council,  but,  like  much  else,  this  is  shrouded  in 
mystery.  But  from  this  time  on,  we  may  believe 
he  was  known  not  only  to  Alexandria,  and  to  Egypt, 
but  to  the  whole  Church. 

At  any  rate,  here  at  Nicsea,  in  Bithynia,  he  re- 
ceived his  life  work  The  great  creed  was  in  a 
peculiar  sense  entrusted  to  him.  Did  he  realize  as 
after  a  brilliant  banquet,  given  by  the  emperor,  the 
council  broke  up,  that  the  great  battle  was  not  over, 
but  only  begun  ?  He  had  unsheathed  his  sword,  and 
now  must  go  forth  to  the  battle  of  years. 

This  little  man  "with  the  face  of  an  angel"  had 


58  At hanasius  :  the:  Hero. 

made  a  great  impression  on  the  far-gathered  Chris- 
tian leaders.  As  he  moved  away  to  return  to  Alex- 
andria, a  discerning  man  might  well  have  exclaimed, 
"There  goes  Nicaea  incarnate." 

We  close  this  chapter  by  quoting  the  great  creed, 
the  corner-stone  of  orthodoxy.  As  we  read  it  again 
let  us  remember  how  it  was  carved  into  form,  not 
as  a  piece  of  idle  speculation,  but  to  protect  the 
faith,  to  keep  it  a  faith  great  and  strong  enough 
to  bear  salvation  to  the  world. 

"We  believe  in  one  God,  the  Father  Almighty, 
maker  of  all  things  visible  and  invisible : — 

"And  in  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
begotten  of  the  Father,  only  begotten,  that  is,  from 
the  essence  of  the  Father;  God  from  God,  Light 
from  Light,  Very  God  from  very  God  begotten, 
not  made,  One  in  essence  (homoousion)  with  the 
Father,  by  Whom  all  things  were  made,  both  things 
in  heaven  and  things  in  earth ;  who  for  us  men,  and 
for  our  salvation,  came  down  and  was  made  flesh, 
was  made  man,  suffered  and  rose  again  the  third 
day,  ascended  into  heaven,  and  cometh  to  judge 
quick  and  dead. 

"And  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

"And  those  who  say,  'Once  He  was  not/  and 


The;  Rise  of  Arianism.  59 

'Before  His  generation  He  was  not,'  and  'He  came 
to  be  from  nothing/  or  those  who  pretend  that  the 
Son  of  God  is  'of  other  substance  or  essence/  or 
'created/  or  'alterable/  or  'mutable/  the  Catholic 
Church  anathematizes."1 


lCf.     The  Nicene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers.      Second  Series,  Vol.  4, 
page  75. 


CHAPTER  V. 
ATHANASIUS  BISHOP. 

Within  three  years  after  the  council  at  Nicsea, 
Bishop  Alexander  died.  We  are  told  that  before 
his  death,  he  called  for  Athanasius.  The  young 
archdeacon  was  away,  perhaps  with  the  hope  of 
evading  the  great  responsibility  he  foresaw  ap- 
proaching him.  Another  Athanasius  responded  to 
the  bishop's  call,  but  without  noticing  him,  he  re- 
peated the  name  and  continued,  "You  think  to  es- 
cape, but  it  can  not  be." 

Not  only  the  dying  Alexander,  but  the  laity  of 
Alexandria,  desired  the  election  of  Athanasius  to 
the  office  of  bishop.  It  is  interesting  that  the  people 
in  clamoring  for  his  election  called  him  not  only 
"the  good,,,  "the  pious,"  etc.,  but  "one  of  the  ascet- 
ics." His  sympathy  with  this  development  of 
Church  life  was  evidently  well  known. 

When  the  bishops  of  Egypt  and  Libya  met  to 
elect  Alexander's  successor,  a  majority  voted  for 
Athanasius,  and  he  was  duly  installed  in  the  great 
office. 

60 


Athanasius  Bishop.  6i 

An  Arian  story  of  the  forcible  seizure  of  the 
office  by  Athanasius  is  very  evidently  a  piece  of 
malicious  slander.  The  formal  statement  by  the 
bishops  of  Egypt  and  Libya,  made  ten  years  after,  of 
his  election  by  a  majority  of  their  number,  makes  the 
story  quite  unworthy  of  attention. 

At  about  the  age  of  thirty,  Athanasius  found 
himself  one  of  the  most  powerful  ecclesiastics  in 
the  world.  The  bishops  of  Egypt  and  Libya  were 
subject  to  him,  and  his  power  and  influence  were 
vast  and  far-reaching.  When  a  man  who  is  some- 
thing greater  and  finer  than  a  mere  ecclesiastic 
comes  to  a  great  ecclesiastical  position,  and  great 
spiritual  leadership  takes  the  place  of  what  too  often 
is  mere  manipulation  of  Churchly  machinery,  there 
is  cause  for  peculiar  gratification.  This  had  hap- 
pened in  the  case  of  Athanasius.  As  great  as  the 
office  was,  the  man  who  filled  it  was  greater. 

It  is  pleasant  to  pause  in  the  little  period  of  quiet 
which  Athanasius  enjoyed  before  his  enemies  closed 
upon  him  for  the  long  and  terrible  battle.  One  is 
glad  to  think  of  the  times  of  quiet  in  this  storm- 
tossed  life.  During  this  period  the  forming  of  the 
Church  in  Ethiopia  has  been  placed.  A  naive,  in- 
teresting tale  of  ancient  missionary  zeal  it  is,  and 
we  will  proceed  to  its  narration. 


62  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

Athanasius  was  holding  a  synod  when  a  person 
just  from  Ethiopia  requested  a  hearing.  He  gave 
his  name  as  Frumentius,  and  told  how  years  be- 
fore he  and  his  brother,  as  boys,  had  accompanied 
a  kinsman,  Meropius  by  name,  who  was  a  philoso- 
pher and  their  instructor,  on  a  voyage  to  Ethiopia. 
The  vessel  had  put  in  at  a  Red  Sea  port.  The  sav- 
ages had  put  most  of  those  on  board  to  death,  but 
afterward  rinding  the  two  boys  studying  their  les- 
sons under  a  tree,  all  unconscious  of  the  tragedy, 
their  sense  of  sympathy  was  touched,  and  the  boys' 
lives  were  spared.  First  they  were  slaves  to  the 
king,  but  gaining  his  respect  and  confidence,  they 
were  advanced  in  position,  and  at  his  death,  Fru- 
mentius became  the  guardian  of  his  son.  He  had 
done  his  utmost  while  in  that  position  for  the  spread 
of  Christianity  among  the  people.  The  young  king 
had  now  assumed  active  control  of  the  affairs  of 
his  country,  and  Frumentius  and  his  brother,  despite 
the  request  that  they  should  remain,  had  returned 
to  the  Roman  world.  Frumentius  presented  him- 
self to  the  great  Alexandrian  bishop  to  inform  him 
of  the  opportunity  opened  before  Christianity  in 
Ethiopia,  and  to  ask  that  a  bishop  might  be  sent  to 
take  charge  of  the  work. 

Athanasius  was  evidently  much  impressed  with 
the  story. 


Athanasius  Bishop.  63 

"And  who,"  he  said,  "can  be  so  fitted  as  your- 
self for  such  a  work."  The  other  bishops  assent- 
ing, Frumentius  was  consecrated  at  once.  He  re- 
turned to  Ethiopia  and  became  head  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  there.  His  name  was  long  remembered 
with  honor  as  the  father  of  the  Ethiopian  Church. 

A  visit  about  this  time  to  the  Thebaid  is  re- 
corded. And  a  story  full  of  quaintness  is  told  of 
how  Pachomius  came  from  his  monastery  with  a 
company  of  monks  to  greet  the  bishop,  but  hid  him- 
self among  his  monks,  lest  Athanasius  would  ordain 
him  a  priest.  So  he  saw  Alexandria's  bishop  with- 
out being  recognized  himself. 

The  time  of  quiet  passed  all  too  quickly,  and  the 
dull  cloudy  dawn  of  the  day  of  trouble  came. 

The  silenced  Arians  were  not  willing  to  take 
Nicsea  as  final,  and  began  to  stir  themselves.  They 
moved  with  a  subtlety  and  caution  which  boded  ill 
for  the  future. 

Eusebius,  of  Nicomedia,  had  been  banished  in 
spite  of  his  signing  the  Nicene  formula,  but  he  had 
friends  at  court,  and  after  a  time  was  recalled.  Euse- 
bius was  a  remarkable  combination  of  astuteness 
and  unscrupulous  daring.  It  was  not  long  before 
he  had  secured  the  recall  of  Arius  from  his  exile. 
The  emperor,  great  as  he  was  in  some  relations, 


64  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

was  pliant  in  the  hands  of  a  man  of  clever  diplomacy 
in  regard  to  Churchly  affairs. 

The  situation  was  one  which  required  great 
diplomacy,  and  extraordinary  skill,  if  the  Arians 
were  to  regain  their  power.  No  one  knew  better 
than  Eusebius  that  the  time  had  not  come  to  at- 
tack the  Xicene  formula.  That  would  have  been 
a  fatal  blunder,  while  Constantine  lived.  But  if  one 
could  bring  into  disrepute  the  great  Xicene  leaders, 
and  secure  their  overthrow,  other  features  of  the 
triumph  of  Arianism  could  be  taken  care  of  later. 
So  one  by  one,  men  who  stood  for  the  Nicene  posi- 
tion were  attacked,  but  never  with  a  frank  declara- 
tion of  the  real  reason  for  attack.  It  is  said  that  ten 
of  the  Nicene  leaders  were  exiled  within  a  couple 
of  years.  The  multitude  who  had  never  fathomed 
the  real  meaning  of  Nicsea,  was  not  difficult  to 
manipulate,  and  the  court  was  the  natural  home  of 
intrigue  and  readily  lent  itself  to  the  aims  of  the 
Arians.  The  court  doubtless  felt  a  natural  inclination 
to  take  sides  with  men  whose  substitution  of  political 
machinations  for  earnestness  and  spiritual  leader- 
ship made  them  seem  quite  at  home  with  its  own 
methods  and  standards. 

At  length  the  time  came  to  strike  a  blow  at 
Athanasius.     While  he  was  bishop  at  Alexandria 


Athanasius  Bishop.  65 

and  constantly  increasing  in  popular  prestige,  the 
Arian  triumph  could  not  be  said  to  be  in  sight. 
There  could  be  no  thought  of  attacking  his  theolog- 
ical opinions.  He  must  be  involved  in  difficulty 
with  the  emperor.  He  must  be  accused  of  personal 
misdoing,  and  so  humiliated  and  overthrown.  This 
done,  the  sky  would  begin  to  clear  for  the  Arians. 

Eusebius  wrote  to  Athanasius,  saying  that  a  man 
whose  opinions  had  been  as  seriously  misrepre- 
sented as  those  of  Arius,  ought  to  be  received  to 
communion,  and  insisting  that  Athanasius  should 
do  this. 

The  carrier  of  the  letter  had  suggestions  of  ter- 
rible consequences  if  the  request  was  not  acceded  to. 
Now  we  find  Athanasius  face  to  face  with  a  diffi- 
cult problem.  Assailed  by  so  wily  and  unscrupulous 
a  foe,  how  easy  it  would  have  been  to  find  safety 
in  compromise.  How  many  men  would  have  con- 
soled themselves  with  comforting  and  seemingly 
pious  thoughts  about  the  peace  of  the  Church,  and 
then  have  received  Arius  to  communion.  Athana- 
sius firmly  refused.  The  situation  became  more 
ominous.  Eusebius  was  no  mere  provincial  prelate 
whose  wishes  could  be  ignored  with  impunity.  He 
was  a  man  of  influence  at  court.  A  letter  came 
from  the  emperor  himself  to  Athanasius  demanding 
5 


66  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

that  he  would  freely  admit  all  who  desired  it,  and 
threatening  to  depose  him  from  his  bishopric  if  he 
refused. 

Athanasius  was  a  powerful  bishop.  But  it  was  a 
very  costly  and  dangerous  thing  for  even  a  power- 
ful bishop  to  quarrel  with  his  emperor.  Would 
it  not  be  better  to  accede  to  his  commands?  How 
much  confusion  would  be  brought  to  the  Church  by 
an  open  breach.  Would  it  not  be  wise  to  preserve 
a  position  where  so  much  practical  good  was  being 
done,  where  he  was  already  so  much  loved,  and 
could  be  of  such  large  service,  when  it  was  only  a 
matter  of  theological  dispute  which  was  at  issue? 
Why  not  admit  Arius  to  communion,  secure  his 
friendship,  that  of  Eusebius,  and  the  approval  of 
the  emperor,  and  so  contribute  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  Church? 

Sophistry  has  a  subtle  penetration  of  its  own,  and 
such  arguments  would  have  sounded  well.  But 
Athanasius  was  no  weakling,  to  go  to  his  moral 
undoing  attired  in  a  cloal^  of  religious  sophistry. 
With  firmness  and  dignity,  he  replied  that  "the 
Christ-opposing  heresy  had  no  fellowship  with  the 
Catholic  Church." 

The  emperor  himself  seems  to  have  been  im- 
pressed by  the  reply  and  made  no  immediate  at- 


Athanasius  Bishop.  67 

tempt  to  carry  out  his  threat.  The  Arians  were  fer- 
tile in  expedients,  however,  and  with  the  failure  of 
one  plan  had  another  ready.  They  had  allied  them- 
selves with  the  Meletians,  the  Egyptian  schismatic 
sect,  which  Athanasius  opposed,  and  now  prepared 
to  strike  the  bishop  through  them. 

Three  Meletian  bishops  came  to  the  emperor's 
palace  complaining  that  Athanasius  was  levying  a 
tax  upon  Egypt  for  Church  expenses.  This  as- 
suming of  governmental  powers  was  a  grave  of- 
fense. But  two  Alexandrian  presbyters  were  at 
court  and  disproved  the  charge.  Constantine  now 
wrote  to  Athanasius  desiring  to  see  him.  The  bishop 
left  Alexandria  and  came  to  the  emperor.  Upon 
his  arrival  his  enemies  had  ready  an  even  graver 
charge.  They  declared  that  he  had  sent  a  purse  of 
gold  to  a  certain  Philumenus,  a  rebel.  This  Athana- 
sius disproved  without  difficulty.  But,  unbaffled,  his 
foes  brought  forth  another  charge,  the  much  dis- 
cussed story  of  the  broken  chalice. 

The  situation  was  this :  A  certain  young  man 
named  Ischyras  had  pretended  to  be  a  presbyter, 
though  he  had  been  declared  only  a  layman  by  an 
Alexandrian  council,  because  his  ordination  had 
come  not  from  a  bishop,  but  from  a  schismatical 
presbyter.    Ischyras,  however,  insisted  on  perform- 


68  Athanasius:  The;  Hero. 

ing  the  duties  of  a  presbyter  at  a  little  hamlet  where 
his  congregation  consisted  mostly  of  his  own  family. 
The  congregation  met  at  the  house  of  an  orphan 
boy.  Athanasius  being  informed  of  this  irregularity 
while  making  a  tour  of  the  region,  sent  a  priest 
named  Macarius  to  summon  Ischyras  to  appear  be- 
fore him.  The  young  man  was  found  ill,  and  the 
bishop's  rebuke  was  delivered  through  his  father. 
When  Ischyras  recovered  his  own  family  deserted 
him,  and  he  went  over  to  the  Meletians.  After  this, 
and  upon  this  small  basis  of  fact,  the  invention  of 
enemies  made  a  story  with  which  to  undo  Athana- 
sius. According  to  this  version,  Ischyras  had  been 
administering  the  sacrament  when  Macarius  ap- 
peared. The  latter  rushed  in  upon  him,  broke  the 
chalice,  and  upset  the  holy  table.  For  this  violence 
on  the  part  of  his  priest,  Athanasius  was  to  be  held 
responsible. 

The  bishop  was  far  from  helpless  in  the  pres- 
ence of  this  accusation.  He  proved  that  on  the  day 
stated,  Ischyras  could  not  have  celebrated  the  sacra- 
ment, for  it  was  a  week-day,  and  Ischyras  was  ill 
and  confined  to  his  bed. 

The  emperor  could  not  fail  to  see  that  the 
charges  were  the  result  of  slander,  and  Athanasius 
returned  to  Alexandria  with  a  letter  from  the  em- 


Athanasius  Bishop.  69 

peror  in  which  he  was  called  a  "man  of  God/'  and 
his  enemies  were  condemned.  So  far,  hatred  and 
malice  had  failed,  and  Alexandria's  bishop  had 
triumphed.  But  a  long  illness,  which  we  know  him 
to  have  undergone,  suggests  how  all  these  charges, 
and  the  bitter  pursuing  hatred  of  his  enemies  had 
weighed  upon  him. 

Any  dreams  of  quiet  which  Athanasius  may 
have  had  were  rudely  broken.  These  were  days  of 
superstition,  and  the  people's  credulity  was  played 
upon  in  the  next  charge  brought  against  the  Alex- 
andrian bishop.  Arsenius,  a  Meletian  bishop,  went 
into  hiding,  and  it  was  reported  that  Athanasius 
had  caused  him  to  be  murdered.  One  of  the  dead 
man's  hands,  it  was  said,  had  been  secured  by  the 
bishop  for  magical  purposes.  A  human  hand  was 
exhibited  in  a  wooden  box  as  the  very  hand  of  the 
murdered  Arsenius. 

The  friends  of  Athanasius  were  on  the  lookout 
for  treachery,  and  began  to  seek  the  hiding  place 
of  Arsenius.  His  whereabouts  in  a  certain  mon- 
astery on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Nile  being  ascer- 
tained, an  attempt  was  made  to  secure  his  person, 
but  he  was  informed  in  time  to  evade  those  seeking 
him.    L,ater,  however,  he  was  discovered  in  Tyre. 


70  Athanasius:   the  Hero. 

At  first  he  denied  his  identity,  but  later  was  forced 
to  confess  that  he  was  no  other  than  himself. 

Constantine  had  summoned  Athanasius  to  An- 
tioch  for  trial,  upon  hearing  the  charge  of  murder- 
ing Arsenius,  but  when  he  learned  that  Arsenius 
was  alive,  he  dismissed  the  case  in  disgust.  Such  a 
succession  of  attempt  and  failure  ought  to  have  been 
enough  to  discourage  the  enemies  of  the  bishop  of 
Alexandria.  But  they  had  a  steadiness  of  purpose 
worthy  of  a  better  cause.  Failure  only  seemed  to 
spur  them  to  resumed  attack.  Their  hatred  was 
unrelenting,  and  they  never  wavered  in  their  pur- 
pose to  ruin  Athanasius. 

The  emperor  was  persuaded  that  there  was 
enough  root  to  all  that  had  been  said  to  make  it 
wise  that  the  whole  case  of  Athanasius  should  be 
submitted  to  a  council.  This  was  to  have  met  at 
Caesarea.  Athanasius  distrusted  the  fairness  of 
those  who  were  to  try  his  case,  and  refused  to  at- 
tend. This  was  a  bold  stand  and  was  sure  to  be 
used  against  him. 

The  emperor  celebrated  the  thirtieth  year  of  his 
reign  in  335  by  the  dedication  of  a  great  Church  on 
Mt.  Calvary.  Before  the  bishops  went  to  Jerusalem 
a  council  was  held  at  Tyre,  and  this  Athanasius 
was  commanded  to  attend.    This  time  there  was  no 


Athanasius  Bishop.  71 

refusing,  and  he  appeared  at  Tyre  attended  by  fifty 
of  his  subordinate  bishops.  His  enemies  were  in 
majority  and  from  the  first  he  and  his  contingent  of 
bishops  were  treated  with  less  than  courtesy.  Ma- 
carius  was  dragged  before  the  council  in  chains  and 
Athanasius  was  forced  to  appear  as  defendant, 
answering  to  wornout  charges  revived  and  re- 
vamped, with  new  charges  thrown  in  to  add  weight 
and  insure  his  final  discomfiture. 

When  the  story  of  the  murder  of  Arsenius  was 
once  more  hurled  at  him,  Athanasius  inquired  if  any 
one  present  knew  Arsenius.  Many  replied  that  they 
did.  Athanasius  led  out  a  man  with  face  closely 
covered.  When  he  told  him  to  raise  his  head,  those 
present  beheld  Arsenius  before  them.  This  was  a 
brilliant  stroke,  and  when  first  one  hand  and  then 
the  other  was  drawn  from  the  man's  cloak,  Athana- 
sius ironically  remarked  that  he  did  not  suppose 
God  had  given  more  than  two  hands  to  any  man. 
One  of  those  principally  concerned  in  the  Arsenius 
charge  was  so  taken  back  by  all  this  that  he  fled 
from  the  room.  Others  found  refuge  in  an  appeal 
to  superstition,  and  cried  out  that  it  was  an  illusion 
of  magic.  This  so  influenced  the  crowd  that 
Athanasius  barely  escaped  with  his  life. 

The  old  story  of  lschyras  and  the  broken  chalice 


72  Athanasius:  the;  Hero. 

had  been  resurrected,  and  it  was  decided  to  send  a 
commission  to  the  scene  of  the  supposed  grave  ir- 
regularity to  learn  the  real  facts.  Eagerness  for 
the  truth  was  manifested  by  sending  men  ahead  to 
get  evidence  against  Athanasius  into  form  and  the 
appointing  of  a  commission  opposed  to  him.  The 
whole  proceeding  was  conducted  with  daring  disre- 
gard of  everything  except  the  desire  to  ruin  Atha- 
nasius. Even  so  the  commission  did  not  succeed  in 
getting  manufactured  evidence  to  be  very  damag- 
ing to  the  man  they  were  plotting  against. 

Seeing  that  there  was  no  hope  of  justice  here, 
Athanasius  resolved  on  a  bold  stroke.  Embarking 
with  five  of  his  bishops,  he  made  a  quick  voyage  and 
suddenly  appeared  in  Constantinople.  As  the  em- 
peror was  riding  into  the  city  Athanasius  suddenly 
presented  himself  before  him.  Constantine  did  not 
know  him  at  first,  and  when  he  learned  who  he  was 
would  have  passed  him  by,  but  Athanasius  firmly 
held  his  ground,  and  with  such  dignity  that  the  em- 
peror could  not  choose  but  hear.  He  demanded  a 
lawful  council  or  hearing,  in  the  emperor's  pres- 
ence. The  emperor  felt  the  weight  of  what  Atha- 
nasius had  to  say,  and  his  request  was  granted. 

In  the  meantime,  the  council  at  Tyre  had  con- 
demned Athanasius  in  his  absence,  and  then  one  re- 


Athanasius  Bishop.  73 

ligious  duty  done,  turned  to  another.  They  pro- 
ceeded to  Jerusalem,  dedicated  the  great  church 
with  due  impressiveness,  and  then  received  Arius 
into  communion  and  again  condemned  Athanasius. 

All  this  accomplished,  they  learned  with  chagrin 
and  alarm  of  what  had  been  going  on  at  court,  and 
the  most  of  them  answered  a  summons  to  appear 
before  the  emperor,  by  flight. 

A  few,  with  the  artful  and  daring  Eusebius, 
came  to  face  Athanasius.  Wily  as  always  they 
dropped  all  previous  charges  and  accused  Atha- 
nasius of  preventing  the  sailing  of  the  Alexandrian 
corn  ships  to  the  capital.  This  clever  charge  of  a 
kind  of  treason,  which  would  particularly  irritate 
the  emperor,  was  well  chosen.  Athanasius  declared 
that  he  was  a  poor  man  and  could  have  done  no  such 
thing.  His  enemies  declared  that  he  was  rich  and 
powerful,  indeed  that  he  could  do  anything.  His 
defense  was  cut  short  and  he  was  banished  by  the 
emperor  to  far  away  Gaul.  Was  the  emperor  tem- 
porarily deceived?  Or  did  he  banish  Athanasius 
simply  to  end  a  disagreeable  controversy?  Or  did 
he  send  him  away,  as  later  declared  by  his  son,  that 
he  might  be  out  of  harm's  way?  His  motives  are 
difficult  to  fathom,  but  the  fact  that  he  allowed  no 
successor  to  be  appointed  to  Athanasius,  suggests 


74  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

that  he  had  his  own  opinion  about  the  extent  of  his 
culpability. 

Something  less  than  eight  years  of  the  bishopric 
of  Athanasius  have  now  passed.  He  has  encoun- 
tered fierce  enough  storms  of  enmity,  and  at  last  his 
foes  have  succeeded  in  driving  him  from  the  city 
he  so  much  loves.  Dreary  enough  the  way  seems 
to  the  far-off  place  of  his  exile.  But  the  dauntless 
bishop  is  not  a  man  to  regret  the  price  exacted  for 
his  loyalty  to  his  convictions.  Better  to  be  an  exile 
in  Gaul  than  a  false  bishop  seated  in  full  power  at 
Alexandria. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  FIRST  EXILE. 

Treves  in  Gaul  was  the  seat  of  the  government 
of  Constantine's  eldest  son,  whose  name  was  also 
Constantine.  Here  Athanasius  remained  for  a 
period  which  has  been  variously  estimated  at  a  year 
or  two  and  a  half  years.  He  was  received  with 
much  kindness  by  the  young  Constantine,  and  it 
was  a  time  of  greatly  needed  rest. 

The  city  of  Treves  was  a  notable  city  in  the  em- 
pire, with  fine  examples  of  Roman  buildings,  sit- 
uated on  the  banks  of  the  river  Moselle.  The  city 
was  on  a  plain,  surrounded  by  vine-clad  hills. 
Treves  probably  seemed  a  metropolis  to  the  young 
men  of  Gaul,  but  to  Athanasius,  fresh  from  Alex- 
andria, it  must  have  seemed  an  outpost  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

At  Treves,  the  orthodox  bishop,  Maximin, 
proved  a  friend  to  the  exile,  and  he  found  comfort 
in  the  presence  of  some  friends  who  accompanied 
him  from  Egypt.  One  of  the  best  features  of  the 
situation  was  that  he  was  allowed  to  correspond 

75 


76  Athanasius  :  the:  Hero. 

with  friends  at  Alexandria  and  elsewhere.  In  cor- 
respondence, however,  there  was  always  the  risk 
that  his  letters  would  be  seized  and  their  contents 
used  against  him.  There  is  quite  a  contrast  between 
the  life  of  a  busy  and  powerful  bishop  in  his  own 
city,  and  the  life  of  a  waiting  exile  in  a  far  country. 
Archdeacon  Farrar  heads  his  account  of  this  period 
in  the  life  of  Athanasius  with  the  words  of  Milton, 
"They  also  serve,  who  only  stand  and  wait."  A 
man  whose  life  has  no  silent  times  is  not  to  be  en- 
vied. One  can  not  doubt  that  Athanasius  learned 
to  know  God  better  in  these  quiet  days  at  Treves. 
We  may  think  of  him  moving  along  the  streets  of 
the  ancient  Roman  city,  musing  along  the  banks  of 
the  quiet  river  Moselle,  or  on  the  vine-clad  hills  en- 
circling the  city,  or  taking  part  in  the  religious  life 
of  the  people  among  whom  he  was  dwelling,  think- 
ing deep,  long  thoughts  of  God,  and  His  ways,  and 
always  with  yearning  and  prayers,  thinking  of  his 
own  beloved  people  far  away  in  the  south. 

News  was  not  lacking  of  the  world  from  which 
he  was  separated.  His  friends  had  tried  in  vain  to 
secure  his  restoration.  It  must  have  been  a  grate- 
ful thought  that  far  away  as  he  was,  true  hearts 
were  cherishing  his  memory  and  longing  for  his 
return. 


The;  First  Exiix  77 

A  startling  and  terrible  story  of  the  death  of 
Arius,  just  in  the  moment  of  his  triumph,  was 
brought  to  Athanasius,  and  full  of  awful  interest 
the  tale  was. 

Arius  had  persuaded  the  emperor  of  his  theolog- 
ical soundness.  How  much  subtlety,  and  perhaps 
hypocrisy,  he  used  it  is  difficult  now  to  say.  When 
he  presented  a  creed  seemingly  satisfactory,  the 
emperor  is  said  to  have  declared,  "If  your  faith  is 
sound  you  have  sworn  innocently  to  its  soundness, 
but  if  it  is  impious  God  will  punish  your  perjury." 

But  any  lurking  doubts  in  the  mind  of  the  em- 
peror were  dissipated,  and  he  commanded  that 
Arius  should  be  received  into  the  communion  of  the 
Church  at  Alexandria.  The  primate  of  the  city,  al- 
though too  weak  to  resist,  was  filled  with  horror 
at  the  thought.  He  is  said  to  have  prayed  weep- 
ing, "If  Arius  comes  to-morrow  to  the  Church, 
take  me  away  and  let  me  not  perish  with  the  guilty, 
but  if  Thou  pitiest  Thy  Church,  as  Thou  dost  pity 
it,  take  Arius  away  lest  when  he  enters  heresy  enter 
with  him." 

The  morning  came.  Arius  and  his  friends  started 
to  the  church.  On  the  way  he  was  taken  with  a 
violent  seizure,  which  almost  immediately  resulted 
in  his  death.    The  circumstances  painfully  suggest 


78  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

poisoning.  And  it  is  not  beyond  possibility  that 
some  fanatic  may  have  thought  he  would  be  doing 
God  service  by  murdering  Arius.  Naturally  we 
hesitate  to  come  to  such  a  conclusion,  and  there  is 
suggestion  in  what  we  know  of  Arius  to  believe 
that  his  death  may  have  been  quite  natural,  though 
so  terribly  sudden.  In  those  rude  days  there  was 
all  too  much  barbaric  rejoicing  over  the  awful  man- 
ner of  his  taking  off.  We  are  glad  to  believe  that 
Athanasius  did  not  share  this  feeling.  Attention 
has  been  called  to  the  fact  that  only  he  narrates 
the  death  of  Arius  with  reserve  and  dignity.  Strange 
and  solemn  the  news  would  be  when  brought  to 
Athanasius  in  Treves,  and  we  can  imagine  him  sadly 
reflecting  on  the  life  of  the  old  man  who  had  given 
such  brilliant  powers  to  the  dissemination  of  error, 
and  had  now  come  to  such  a  terrible  end. 

To  us  to-day,  the  life  of  Arius  is  full  of  suggest- 
iveness.  Did  he  know  that  he  was  wrong  ?  Was  he 
a  double-minded  man,  or  simply  in  error  ?  It  is  not 
easy  to  believe  him  to  have  been  absolutely  single- 
minded,  with  the  evidence  his  life  affords.  But  it 
is  a  sobering  reflection  that  even  if  Arius  was  sin- 
cere, a  profounder  earnestness  would  have  made  his 
particular  error  •  unlikely,  if  not  impossible.  Men 
are  often  sincerely  wrong,  because  their  inner  lives 


The  First  Exiix  79 

are  superficial,  because  they  have  never  had  a 
mighty  moral  fight,  out  of  which  new  acumen  and 
discernment  would  have  come. 

The  evil  that  Arius  did  surely  lived  after  him. 
His  death  doubtless  brought  discouragement  to  his 
followers,  but  discouragement  from  which  they  were 
not  long  in  rallying.  Their  inmost  feeling  was, 
"Arius  is  dead,  long  live  Arianism."  They  were  to 
fight  great  battles  and  to  have  great  successes,  and 
it  was  not  their  fault  if  Arianism  did  not  become  the 
creed  of  all  the  Christians  in  the  whole  world.  Of 
this,  Athanasius  could  not  know,  though  he  may 
have  surmised,  when  the  word  came  to  him  in  his 
far  exile  that  Arius  was  dead. 

Athanasius  was  never  to  see  the  emperor 
again.  Constantine  had  been  a  man  of  ro- 
bust health  and  strength,  but  suddenly  his 
vitality  failed,  and  the  soldier  monarch  en- 
tered upon  a  short,  failing  battle  for  his  own  life. 
Realizing  that  the  end  was  near,  he  desired  to  be 
baptized,  giving  as  his  reason  for  deferring  the  rite 
until  this  time,  a  desire  he  had  felt  to  be  baptized 
in  the  river  Jordan,  as  was  our  Lord  Himself. 
Constantine  put  aside  the  purple,  and  clad  in  a  white 
baptismal  robe,  with  humble  confession,  was  bap- 
tized.   It  is  said  he  did  not  again  assume  the  pur- 


80  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

pie,  but  wore  the  white  robe  of  his  baptism  until  his 
death.  Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Nicomedia,  adminis- 
tered the  rite  of  baptism  to  the  emperor.  This  wily 
ecclesiastic  kept  his  hold  on  Constantine  until  the 
last. 

On  May  22,  337  A.  D.,  the  emperor  died.  His 
body  was  taken  in  state  to  Constantinople,  and  he 
was  finally  buried  in  a  Christian  church. 

Constantine  had  his  faults,  and  they  were  glaring 
enough.  But  under  all  else  he  had  a  sense  of  the 
reality  of  Christianity.  And  we  will  remember  him 
as  he  met  death,  reaching  out  for  the  help  of  the 
religion  he  had  sincerely  reverenced,  though  never 
really  understood.  A  rude,  strong  man,  groping 
at  last  for  the  Greater  Strength. 

To  Athanasius  it  must  have  come  home  that 
much  could  happen  in  a  very  short  time.  Changes 
enough  had  come,  but  not  full  of  promise.  The 
Arians  still  had  Eusebius — and  Eusebius  far  out- 
Ariused  Arius  in  practical  skill  and  diplomacy.  The 
Exile  from  Alexandria  by  no  means  felt  that  he 
looked  out  on  a  clear  sky.  We  have  preserved  a 
festal  letter  of  Athanasius,  written  during  this  first 
exile.  He  tells  his  people  that,  in  spite  of  afflictions, 
distances,  and  machinations  of  enemies,  he  is  not 
forgetful  of  his  duty  of  announcing  to  them  the 


The;  First  Exnx  81 

time  of  the  feast.  He  has  already  written  to  the 
presbyters  at  Alexandria  encouraging  them  by  the 
reminder  that  "Nothing  separates  us  from  the  love 
of  Christ." 

Now  he  reminds  his  people  that  though  distances 
intervene  between  them,  yet  they  can  keep  the  feast 
together  in  unity  of  spirit,  the  Lord  uniting  them. 
He  reminds  them  that  through  many  tribulations 
the  saint  enters  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  In  a 
brave  and  eager  passage  he  dwells  on  what  a  man 
may  learn  from  afflictions,  and  throbbing  through 
his  words  comes  the  sense  that  Athanasius  himself 
had  found  the  secret  of  extracting  from  what  he 
endured  something  which  contributed  to  the  depth 
and  strength  of  his  life.  He  remembers  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ,  and  quotes  the  apostle's  words,  "I 
can  do  all  things  through  Christ,  who  strengthened 
me,"  and  "In  all  these  things  we  are  more  than  con- 
querers,  through  Christ  who  loved  us." 

This  letter  with  its  warm  glow  of  Christian  feel- 
ing, reveals  something  of  the  inner  life  of  the  great 
bishop,  and  something  of  the  sources  of  power 
which  held  him  stanch  and  steadfast  through  the 
years. 

One  of  the  things  Athanasius  had  learned  was 
that  though  exiled  from  Alexandria,  he  was  not  ex- 
6 


82  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

iled  from  God.  Prayer  winged  its  flight  to  the  great 
loving  Father  as  speedily  in  Gaul  as  in  Egypt.  And 
he  found  himself  face  to  face  with  great  inner  real- 
ities— he  entered  more  deeply  into  the  knowledge 
of  Christ — as  the  way  became  difficult  and  lone. 
Whatever  coming  days  might  bring  him,  this  time 
of  exile  had  been  fruitful  for  his  life.  If  there  were 
new  problems  to  face,  new  persecutions  to  meet, 
from  the  quiet  of  the  inner  communion  he  would 
come  with  new  power  to  meet  them.  So,  serene  in 
the  companionship  of  Christ,  Athanasius  waited 
what  the  future  might  bring. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  RESTORATION  AND  THE  SECOND 
EXILE. 

Constantine  left  behind  him  three  sons,  Con- 
stantine,  Constantius,  and  Constans.  They  were 
young  men  whose  ages  were  twenty-one,  twenty, 
and  seventeen.  Others  who  might  have  made  royal 
pretensions  were  slain  by  the  soldiers  who  would 
have  none  but  the  sons  of  Constantine  for  their 
rulers.  So  these  three  youths  came  to  be  the  rulers 
of  a  divided  empire.  The  three  met  together  and  it 
was  decided  that  Constantine  should  take  the  Gauls 
and  Africa,  Constantius  the  East,  and  Constans 
Italy  and  Illyricum. 

Together  they  agreed  on  the  restoration  of  Atha- 
nasius  to  his  see.  This,  the  elder  brother  had  pre- 
viously announced  to  the  people  of  Alexandria  in  a 
letter  written  from  Treves.  It  is  interesting  that 
in  this  letter  he  declares  that  in  restoring  the  Alex- 
andrian bishop,  who,  he  says,  was  sent  to  Gaul  to 
protect  him  from  his  enemies,  he  is  carrying  out 
the  intention  of  his  father.    He  speaks  in  high  terms 

83 


84  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

of  Athanasius,  who  had  evidently  made  a  most  fa- 
vorable impression  upon  him. 

So  it  came  about  that  in  the  fall  of  the  year  337 
or  338  A.  D.  (there  is  a  dispute  as  to  the  year) 
Athanasius  returned  to  Alexandria.  He  had  a 
couple  of  interviews  with  Constantius  on  the  way, 
and  showed  his  moderation  by  making  no  attempt 
to  work  injury  to  any  of  his  enemies. 

It  was  a  great  day  to  his  Church  when  the  exiled 
bishop  returned  to  his  native  city.  The  clergy  of 
Athanasius  declared  it  to  be  the  happiest  day  of 
their  lives.  And  that  day  was  made  a  day  of  annual 
festival.  So  again  the  bishop  took  up  the  work  of 
caring  for  the  Churches  under  his  charge. 

Restoration,  however,  by  no  means  meant  cessa- 
tion of  trouble.  The  youth  on  the  throne  at  Con- 
stantinople was  to  fill  many  a  bitter  cup  for  the 
quaffing  of  Athanasius.  Constantius  was  of  a  jeal- 
ous disposition,  and  lacked  power  of  personal  grap- 
ple and  decision.  The  king  who  is  a  puppet  of  those 
who  surround  him,  is  a  poor  kind  of  monarch,  and 
in  the  affairs  of  the  Church  Constantius  proved  to 
be  this  kind  of  a  ruler.  Eusebius,  of  Nicomedia, 
had  now  become  bishop  of  Constantinople,  and  here 
this  ecclesiastical  courtier  had  ample  opportunity 
for  the  exercise  of  his  particular  gifts. 


The;  Restoration  and  Second  Exiix      85 

The  time  had  now  come  when  not  only  the 
Arians,  but  Arianism  could  lift  its  head.  Constan- 
tine  was  dead  and  men  did  not  need  to  pretend  so 
much  formal  allegiance  to  the  Nicene  formula  as 
had  seemed  necessary  in  his  presence.  Busily 
moved  the  wheels  of  ecclesiastical  machinery,  and 
erelong  the  emperor  was  safely  held  by  the  Arian 
leaders.  Their  methods,  to  be  sure,  were  not  al- 
ways dignified.  Even  the  palace  eunuchs  must  be 
used  if  the  emperor  was  to  be  secured.  But  the 
main  thing  to  Eusebius  and  his  friends  was  the  re- 
sult,— and  the  result  was  accomplished.  With  an 
emperor  ready  to  do  their  bidding,  of  course  it  was 
not  long  until  a  blow  was  aimed  at  Athanasius.  He 
was  blamed  for  violence,  which  was  said  to  have 
accompanied  his  return  to  Alexandria.  It  was  de- 
clared that  he  had  diverted  corn,  which  was  to  go 
for  the  relief  of  widows  as  a  bounty  from  the  em- 
peror. Answers  to  these  charges  were  ready,  but 
they  do  not  seem  to  have  received  much  attention. 
An  intruder,  Pistus  by  name,  an  Arian,  was  sent  to 
Alexandria  to  assume  the  office  of  bishop  in  the 
place  of  Athanasius,  and  three  ecclesiastics  were 
sent  to  Rome  to  secure  the  recognition  of  Pistus 
by  Julius,  Bishop  of  Rome. 

Athanasius  was  not  only  a  great  Christian  and 


86  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

a  great  theologian,  but  he  was  a  man  of  very  great 
practical  resourcefulness.  He  could  move  with 
rapidity  and  effective  energy,  when  it  was  neces- 
sary. He  now  held  a  synod  of  about  a  hundred 
bishops  in  Alexandria.  The  whole  situation  was 
canvassed  and  a  strong  encyclical  letter  was  pre- 
pared in  his  defense.  This  letter  has  come  down 
to  us,  and  is  a  valuable  source  of  material  for  the 
life  of  Athanasius.  Egyptian  presbyters  were  sent 
with  this  to  Julius  at  Rome.  Thus  it  came  about 
that  when  the  Arian  deputies  arrived  at  Rome  they 
were  faced  by  fully  equipped  friends  of  Athanasius. 
So  nonplused  were  they  that  their  leader  soon  de- 
parted unceremoniously  in  the  night.  The  other 
Arians  asked  that  Julius  would  convene  a  council 
to  decide  the  matter,  and  himself  act  as  judge.  In 
the  meantime,  other  things  were  happening  in  the 
East.  Athanasius  was  declared  blameworthy  from 
another  standpoint.  lie  had  been  deposed  by  the 
council  at  Tyre,  and  had  returned  with  only  secular 
authority,  without  a  reversal  of  the  decree  by  any 
ecclesiastical  body.  This  was  an  irregularity,  and 
a  grave  one.  It  seems  just  a  little  comical  to  think 
of  the  Arians,  with  all  their  dependence  on  State 
aid,  blaming  Athanasius  for  the  same  thing.  As  for 
the  point  at  issue,  the  Alexandrian  bishop  doubtless 


The  Restoration  and  Second  Exile.      87 

felt  that  the  corrupt  and  unworthy  council  of  Tyre 
had  forfeited  all  right  to  ecclesiastical  recognition. 
The  question  thus  raised,  however,  was  an  important 
one,  though  a  clearer  atmosphere  was  needed  in  or- 
der that  it  might  be  seen  in  all  its  significance.  The 
only  real  settlement  would  come  when  the  principle 
would  be  recognized  that  the  State  is  not  to  inter- 
fere with  the  ecclesiastical  affairs  of  the  Church. 
Meantime,  in  the  situation  in  which  he  found 
himself,  and  with  all  the  environments  of  the  time, 
we  can  not  blame  Athanasius  for  allowing  himself 
to  be  restored  by  imperial  authority. 

A  synod  now  met  at  Antioch,  which  formally 
deposed  Athanasius.  It  had  become  evident 
that  Pistus  was  not  the  proper  man  for 
his  place,  and  a  certain  Gregory,  of  Cappa- 
docia — an  Arian  sympathizer,  of  course — was  put 
forward  instead.  The  next  thing  in  this  triumphant 
progress  of  Arianism,  was  to  get  rid  of  Athanasius 
and  to  place  Gregory  securely  in  his  place.  A  gov- 
ernor, who  seems  to  have  been  favorable  to  Atha- 
nasius, was  replaced  by  one  who  could  be  used  for 
the  furtherance  of  the  plans  of  the  Arians.  This 
governor,  Philagrius,  attacked  the  Church  of  St. 
Quirinus  and  gave  encouragement  to  the  mob  who 
perpetrated  cruel  outrages.    Athanasius  was  living 


88  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

at  this  time  in  the  Church  of  St.  Theonas.  Know- 
ing that  he  was  aimed  at  in  the  disturbance,  he  re- 
tired from  the  city,  first  having  administered  the  rite 
of  baptism  to  many.  In  his  place  of  retirement,  he 
composed  a  letter  giving  an  account  of  the  outrages. 

Gregory  now  entered  the  city,  and  angered  by 
the  coldness  of  his  reception,  caused  new  disturb- 
ances and  persecution.  On  Good  Friday,  it  is  said, 
thirty-four  women  were  scourged,  and  on  Easter, 
Christians  sent  to  prison.  A  reign  of  cruelty  and  in- 
justice followed.  It  wras  not  a  very  auspicious  be- 
ginning for  a  new  episcopate,  and  a  strange  way 
of  celebrating  the  Easter  season  in  the  Christian 
Church. 

To  Athanasius  these  horrors  must  have  been  full 
of  heart-break.  He  contrived  to  escape,  and  gain- 
ing a  ship,  sailed  for  Rome  339  or  340  A.  D. 
(another  difference  of  opinion  here). 

It  was  a  dark  day  for  Alexandria, — a  pagan 
governor,  a  persecuting  bishop,  and  the  real  father 
of  the  flock  departing  for  a  new  exile. 

Gregory  even  went  so  far  as  to  torture  captains 
of  ships,  to  get  them  to  take  his  "letters  of  com- 
munion. "  A  document  of  severe  indictment  against 
Athanasius  was  now  formulated,  and  signed  by 
Arians    and  heathens.       This  document,  accusing 


The  Restoration  and  Second  Exile.      89 

Athanasius  of  capital  crimes,  was  entrusted  to  Phila- 
grius  to  be  put  into  the  hands  of  the  emperor  him- 
self. 

Athanasius  spent  several  years  as  an  exile  in 
Rome.  He  was  kindly  received  by  Julius,  the 
Roman  bishop,  and  again  his  time  of  exile  proved 
a  time  of  rest.  Constantine  II  met  his  death  in  this 
period,  and  in  him  Athanasius  lost  a  friend.  But 
Constans  was  ready  to  befriend  him.  In  fact,  be- 
fore leaving  Alexandria,  Athanasius  had  sent  to 
Constans  at  his  request  copies  of  the  Scriptures. 

Rome  was  at  this  time  something  of  a  rendezvous 
for  deposed  prelates,  and  Athanasius  found  himself 
in  the  company  of  others  who  had  been  deposed 
from  their  sees. 

One  thinks  with  much  interest  of  the  impression 
the  "Eternal  City"  must  have  made  on  the  great 
exile.  Rome  was  still  a  city  full  of  wonder,  if  not 
now  the  actual  capital  of  the  empire.  The  seven 
hills  with  their  magnificent  architecture,  the  river 
Tiber  still  flowing,  as  through  many  a  century  of 
Roman  life,  the  evidences  everywhere  of  an  ancient 
and  mighty  center  of  civilization,  these  must  have 
been  full  of  interest  to  Athanasius,  and  all  the  more 
because  this  city  and  the  civilization  it  represented 
were  different  from  his  own.    The  life,  Athanasius 


90  Athanasius  :  the;  Hero. 

knew,  was  brilliant,  endlessly  inventive,  full  of  sub- 
tle insight.  Rome  stood  for  solidity  and  strength, 
rather  than  versatility.  Rome  meant  law  with  all 
the  steadiness  and  strength  and  all  the  weakness  of 
legalism.  The  two  types  of  thought  have  each  found 
a  place  in  the  life  of  the  Church.  The  Roman  has 
had  far  too  large  a  place.  Its  legal  logic  has  lacked 
vitality,  and  has  frozen  some  theologies  into  some- 
thing very  like  cold  rigidity.  We  have  yet  some- 
thing to  learn  from  the  Greek. 

The  Rome  of  the  time  of  Athanasius  did  feel  the 
influence  of  the  Greek,  as  represented  by  him.  In 
the  first  place  he  confirmed  its  orthodoxy.  In 
Athanasius  was  found  more  than  orthodox  correct- 
ness of  thinking.  He  was  orthodoxy  alive.  The 
Nicene  formula  throbbed  in  his  blood.  It  is  difficult 
to  estimate  the  degree  of  the  theological  influence  of 
the  years  he  spent  in  Rome  upon  the  Church  there. 
But  we  may  be  sure  it  was  not  small.  In  him  the 
East  gave  its  best  to  the  West. 

Another  influence  resulting  from  this  stay  at 
Rome,  was  not  so  desirable.  Up  to  this  time  as- 
ceticism had  been  regarded  with  small  favor  at 
Rome.  But  Athanasius  believed  in  it.  As  we  have 
seen,  he  had  a  very  high  regard  for  the  monk,  An- 
tony, and  had  himself  been  called  an  ascetic. 

We  can  readily  understand  in  Athanasius  the 


The  Restoration  and  Second  Exile.      91 

rise  again  and  again  of  the  feeling,  "Good-bye, 
proud  world,  I  'm  going  home."  And  in  that  day, 
before  the  glaring  defects  of  asceticism  had  become 
evident,  it  would  be  expecting  too  much  to  ask  that 
Athanasius  should  have  foreseen  them.  Neverthe- 
less one  is  sorry  that  Athanasius  may  be  called  in  a 
sense  the  father  of  Western  monasticism.  An  error 
is  always  more  powerful  when  it  gains  the  support 
and  influence  of  a  great  and  good  man.  "In  the 
world,  yet  kept  from  evil/'  was  the  Savior's  ideal, 
and  if  the  Church  had  always  understood  this,  how 
many  perversions  and  abnormalities  would  never 
have  been  recorded  in  its  history.  The  prophet 
Jeremiah  would  like  to  have  found  "a  lodge  in  some 
vast  wilderness,"  but  the  Divine  will  held  him  to  his 
hard  task  with  men.  So  always  the  Christian's 
place  is  in  the  world,  in  the  center  of  its  throbbing, 
moving  life,  and  there  he  is  to  live,  not  by  evasion 
and  compromise,  but  witnessing,  and  when  neces- 
sary fighting,  for  God.  The  Christian  is  a  man  who 
in  the  world  stands  for  God.  Much  of  this  empha- 
sis was  to  be  felt  in  days  long  after  Athanasius. 
But  at  this  time  the  man  who  fled  from  the  world 
was  regarded  with  veneration.  Athanasius  shared 
this  feeling.  It  was  one  of  the  mistakes  of  a  great 
man. 


92  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

Julius,  Bishop  of  Rome,  was  now  ready  to  deal 
with  the  problem  of  Athanasius  by  means  of  a  coun- 
cil, as  suggested  by  Arian  deputies  themselves.  The 
council  was  summoned  to  meet  at  Rome.  When 
the  Eusebians  saw  that  the  council  would  be  without 
State  control,  and  that  they  would  be  without  means 
to  control  it,  they  at  once  decided  to  have  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  The  representatives  of  Julius  who  had 
come  to  them  were  kept  waiting  for  a  long  time, 
and  at  last  dismissed  with  a  reply  a  good  deal  less 
than  courteous.  Upon  receiving  it,  Julius  did  not 
make  it  public  at  once,  hoping  that  some  Eusebians 
would  yet  appear.  In  this,  however,  he  was  disap- 
pointed, and  at  last  he  held  a  council  without  them. 
More  than  fifty  bishops  assembled  at  Rome,  and 
went  into  the  whole  question  of  Athanasius's  guilt 
or  innocence.  Their  conclusion,  after  weighing  evi- 
dence which  had  previously  been  sent  against  him, 
and  hearing  witnesses  in  his  favor  from  Egypt, 
was  to  vindicate  Athanasius  completely.  Marcellus 
of  Ancyra,  who  was  also  an  exile  at  Rome,  was 
likewise  vindicated  by  this  council,  with  less  reason 
probably,  so  far  as  his  theology  went,  than  was  the 
case  with  Athanasius. 

Bishop  Julius  now  had  the  task  of  communicat- 
ing the  decision  of  this  council  to  the  Eusebians  at 


The:  Restoration  and  Second  Exile      93 

Antioch,  and  this  he  did  in  a  letter  which  has  been 
called  one  of  the  strongest  documents  of  the  whole 
controversy.  It  is  characterized  by  dignified  kind- 
liness in  its  treatment  of  those  he  is  forced  severely 
to  condemn.  This  letter  is  preserved  in  one  of 
the  works  of  Athanasius. 

The  enemies  of  the  exiled  bishop,  meanwhile, 
were  not  idle.  Athanasius  learned  from  bitter  ex- 
perience that  they  were  never  idle !  Now  they  dealt 
with  him  through  the  council  held  at  Antioch  on  the 
occasion  of  the  dedication  of  the  Golden  Church 
begun  by  Constantine. 

Ninety-seven  bishops  met  here,  and  through  the 
influence  of  the  Arians,  the  deposition  of  Athanasius 
was  confirmed.  Now  an  attempt  was  made  to  have 
a  creed  adopted  which  would  take  the  place  of  the 
Nicene  formula  (though  this  taking  the  place  was 
to  be  done  by  stealth).  The  mass  of  the  council 
was  not  frankly  Arian,  and  when  a  creed,  too  evi- 
dently Arian,  was  offered,  another  was  put  forward 
in  its  place.  This  really  left  room  for  Arianism 
at  least  by  a  possible  interpretation,  and  got  rid  of 
the  word  the  Arians  hated,  homoousion.  Another 
creed  of  Arian  tendency  was  circulated  at  this  coun- 
cil, and  still  another  is  said  to  have  been  falsely 
put  forward  as  coming  from  it.    There  was  a  real 


94  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

jumble  of  creeds.  But  under  it  all  what  was  really 
happening  was  this :  The  conservative  element  was 
trying  to  find  a  way  to  protect  the  faith  without  the 
exact  Nicene  formula.  Later  when  they  found  this 
to  be  impossible,  they  would  move  back  toward  the 
Nicene  creed  again. 

An  endeavor  was  now  made  by  the  Arians  to 
secure  the  support  of  the  Emperor  Constans.  Arian 
prelates  were  sent  to  him  at  Treves  with  a  creed 
purporting  to  be  that  of  the  council  at  Antioch. 
This  creed  seemed  a  wonderful  approach  to  the 
Nicene,  but  was  to  open  the  way  cleverly  to  depart- 
ure from  it.  The  orthodox  bishop,  Maximin,  was 
still  at  Treves,  and  his  influence  would  be  all  on 
the  side  of  a  rigid  loyalty  to  the  Nicene  creed.  The 
Arian  prelates  were  dismissed  without  having  ac- 
complished their  object. 

The  Church  was  then  divided.  The  West  had 
declared  for  Athanasius,  the  East  against  him.  i\nd 
regarding  a  creed,  it  was  coming  to  be  in  a  chaotic 
state. 

Constans  remembered  his  father's  great  council 
of  the  whole  Church,  and  it  seemed  to  him  the  time 
had  come  for  another.  He  wrote  to  his  brother 
Constantius.  The  latter  consented,  and  so  the  way 
was  opened.  Sardica  was  fixed  upon  as  the  place 
for  the  council's  meeting. 


The  Restoration  and  Second  Exiix     95 

Athanasius  was  summoned  by  Constans  to  meet 
him  at  Milan.  Here  he  was  kindly  received  by  the 
emperor,  and  it  became  evident  that  he  could  hope 
for  a  more  favorable  turn  of  affairs  in  regard  to 
himself.  He  must  have  heard  with  joy  and  hope, 
of  the  great  general  council  to  be  held.  Vindication 
there  would  mean  not  simply  a  personal  triumph, 
but  the  triumph  of  the  cause  he  loved  and  the  privi- 
lege of  returning  to  his  own  city,  and  the  care  of 
the  Churches  whose  ecclesiastical  head  he  was.  The 
Emperor  Constans  later  summoned  Athanasius  to 
follow  him  to  Treves,  where  he  met  the  aged  Hosius 
— of  Nicene  fame.  It  is  pleasant  to  think  of  these 
two  men  who  cared  so  deeply  for  the  faith  and  who 
sympathized  so  profoundly  in  their  interpretation 
of  it,  meeting  and  finding  mutual  encouragement  in 
each  other's  society.  Well,  perhaps,  that  neither 
could  look  over  the  years  and  see  the  terrible  cloud 
hanging  on  the  far  horizon. 

In  the  year  343  A.  D. — the  same  year  when  the 
Council  of  Sardica  met — Eusebius,  of  Nicomedia, 
died.  The  end  found  him  in  full  enjoyment  of  his 
successful  cause.  On  the  surface,  one  could  call 
his  life  one  of  extraordinary  achievement.  Over- 
coming difficulties  he  had  secured  the  confidence 
of  two  emperors.  He  was  a  man  to  be  taken  ac- 
count of. 


96  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

No  man  understood  the  ecclesiastical  situation 
better.  No  man  knew  better  how  to  secure  the  ends 
he  had  in  view.  He  did  things.  Really  one  could 
write  quite  a  eulogy  of  Eusebius,  of  Nicomedia, 
and  Constantinople.  But  suppose  we  probe.  Well, 
it  is  better  not  to  probe  in  the  case  of  the  lives  of 
some  men,  and  Eusebius  is  one  of  them.  The  buzz 
of  moving  Churchly  wheels  is  not  necessarily  the 
advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  One  fears 
that  Eusebius  did  not  have  much  to  do  with  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Great  Churchly 
position  does  not  necessarily  mean  high  God-cen- 
tered character.  This  wily  Churchman  probably 
did  not  know  much  of  God.  He  was  doubtless  more 
familiar  with  the  ante-chamber  of  the  emperor  than 
the  ante-chamber  of  the  King  of  kings.  A  man  of 
great  ability?  Yes.  A  man  of  astute  diplomacy? 
Yes.  A  successful  Christian  leader?  No.  He 
fought  on  the  wrong  side,  and  he  fought  unscrupu- 
lously. The  Church  was  poorer,  more  superficial, 
less  real,  because  he  lived.  We  are  not  sorry  to  say 
farewell  to  Eusebius,  of  Nicomedia. 

The  Council  of  Sardica  met  with  about  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy  prelates  in  attendance.  The  ma- 
jority were  Westerns,  who  could  not  be  hoodwinked 
by  the  Arians,  and  the  Eusebians  saw  with  surly  in- 


The  Restoration  and  Second  Exile.      97 

dignation  that  things  were  not  likely  to  turn  out 
according  to  their  desires.  The  Easterns,  therefore, 
shut  themselves  up  in  their  lodgings,  and  refused  to 
take  part  in  the  council  unless  Athanasius  and  some 
others,  they  said  were  under  ecclesiastical  condem- 
nation, should  be  excluded.  The  reply  was  that 
charges  could  be  brought  against,  them  and  they 
would  be  most  carefully  weighed.  They  were  even 
urged  to  give  the  charges  to  Hosius,  the  president 
of  the  council,  in  private.  Every  effort  was  made 
to  lead  them  frankly  to  enter  the  lists  and  do  fair 
battle  for  their  position.  But  in  vain.  At  length, 
with  the  notable  excuse  that  a  victory  over  the  Per- 
sians made  their  return  necessary,  they  departed, 
but  found  time  at  Philippopolis  to  hold  a  council  of 
their  own,  in  which  they  gave  full  vent  to  their  rage, 
renewed  charges  against  Athanasius  and  repudiated 
the  doings  of  the  Sardican  council.  They  also  ut- 
tered a  denunciation  of  Hosius  and  Julius.  A  creed 
was  added  to  this  literary  effervescence  of  wrath. 

This  proceeding  did  break  up  the  unanimity  of 
the  council.  It  proceeded  with  its  work,  however, 
and  after  thorough  consideration  again  was  Atha- 
nasius fully  vindicated.  Oddly  enough,  Marcellus, 
of  Ancyra,  was  allowed  to  slip  through  with  an  ac- 
quittal, too.  The  Nicene  Creed  was  upheld,  and  let- 
7 


98  Athanasius:  tjik  Hero. 

ters  of  sympathy  were  written  to  those  loyal  to 
Athanasius  at  Alexandria.  For  a  time  it  seemed 
as  though  the  West  and  East  were  to  be  arrayed 
against  each  other  in  sharp  conflict.  It  was  feared 
by  the  enemies  of  Athanasius  that  he  would  attempt 
to  return  to  Alexandria,  and  orders  were  given  that 
he  should  be  beheaded  if  he  did.  Such  pressure 
was  brought  on  those  loyal  to  him  at  Alexandria 
that  many  resorted  to  falsehood  for  safety,  and 
many  fled  to  the  deserts. 

Constans  took  the  matter  in  hand,  and  envoys 
from  Sardica  were  sent  to  the  East  to  attempt  to 
win  over  Constantius.  It  is  said  that  Constans 
threatened  war  if  Athanasius  were  not  restored. 
When  the  bishops  representing  Sardica  arrived  at 
Antioch,  a  shameful  plot  was  laid  against  them.  A 
harlot  was  brought  one  night  to  their  lodgings. 
Great  was  the  revulsion  of  feeling  when  the  plot  was 
discovered,  and  Stephen,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  was 
found  to  be  at  the  root  of  it.  A  council  was  held 
which  deposed  Stephen,  although  another  Arian  was 
put  in  his  place.  Even  Constantius  felt  a  reaction 
of  disgust,  and  Gregory,  the  intruded  bishop  of  Al- 
exandria, having  died,  expressed  his  readiness  to 
allow  the  return  of  Athanasius.  The  whole  State 
policy  toward  orthodox  Christians  in  Alexandria 


The:  Restoration  and  Second  Exile.      99 

was  changed  from  persecution  to  tolerance,  and 
Constantius  wrote  to  Athanasius  asking  him  to  re- 
turn. Athanasius  was  wise  enough  not  to  accede 
too  readily,  and  months  had  passed  and  Constantius 
had  written  three  times  before  he  actually  complied 
with  the  request.  Before  returning,  Athanasius  vis- 
ited Julius  at  Rome,  and  Constans  at  Treves.  Julius 
wrote  a  beautiful  letter  of  congratulation  to  the 
Church  at  Alexandria  on  the  restoration  of  Atha- 
nasius. It  is  interesting,  and  suggestive,  too,  that 
Athanasius  in  quoting  it,  omits  a  paragraph  in  his 
own  praise,  which  we  know  from  other  sources. 

Again  Athanasius  met  Constantius  at  Antioch. 
He  was  graciously  received  and  promised  future 
protection.  His  readiness  and  skill  are  seen  in  the 
fact  that  when  Constantius  asked  that  the  Arians 
might  have  a  Church  in  Alexandria,  he  replied  that 
they  might  if  the  anti-Arian  party  in  Antioch  would 
be  allowed  a  Church  in  that  city.  This  was  too  fair 
a  request  for  denial  if  the  emperor  pushed  his  de- 
mand.   So  the  matter  was  dropped. 

From  Antioch,  Athanasius  went  to  Jerusalem, 
where  he  was  greeted  with  the  congratulations  of  an 
orthodox  council,  met  for  the  purpose  of  honoring 
him.  Surely  it  was  fitting  that  in  the  city  so  closely 
associated  with  the  ministry  of  "the  Man  of  Sor- 


ioo  Athanasius:  the:  Hero. 

rows,  and  acquainted  with  grief,"  his  servant  who 
had  suffered  so  much  because  of  his  loyalty  to  his 
Master,  should  be  received  with  welcome  and  honor. 

At  length,  on  October  21,  346  A.  D.,  Athanasius 
returned  to  Alexandria.  This  return  has  been  called 
the  crowning  event  of  his  life.  He  was  met  as 
though  he  had  been  a  conqueror  returning  from  a 
great  war.  And,  indeed,  was  he  not?  A  hundred 
miles  from  the  city  the  people  met  him.  The  cheer- 
ing of  the  enthusiastic  multitude,  the  incense- 
freighted  air,  the  illuminated  and  feasting  city,  made 
the  day  and  night  one  long  to  be  remembered.  If  a 
man  wanted  a  standard  of  comparison  for  some 
splendid  display  of  a  future  time,  this  one  at  the  re- 
turn of  Athanasius  was  ready  for  him.  And  no 
wonder  the  people  gave  such  a  remarkable  ex- 
pression to  their  gladness.  It  must  have  seemed  al- 
most miraculous  that  their  bishop,  after  these  long 
years  of  exile,  should  return.  In  his  absence  how 
they  had  longed  for  him.  How  his  virtues  had  stood 
out  in  their  memories.  And  now  in  spontaneous 
eager  devotion,  the  city  clamored  out  its  magnificent 
welcome. 

When  Athanasius  himself  describes  his  return, 
he  does  not  dwell  on  these  external  things,  but  on 
the  deeper  effects,  the  practical  inspiration  to  Chris- 
tian living  and  the  relation  to  the  profound  things  in 


The;  Restoration  and  Second  Exile,    ioi 

men's  lives.  He  is  right  in  this,  and  we  do  well  to 
remember  that  it  is  not  the  external  glitter  of  a 
man's  life,  but  his  power  to  move  other  men  God- 
ward  in  inner  devotion  and  practical  living,  that  is 
full  of  real  and  lasting  significance.  None  the  less 
we  are  glad  to  think  of  Alexandria  all  alight,  the 
city  given  over  to  rejoicing  over  the  return  of  the 
great  bishop.  How  he  deserved  it,  and  what  a  pure 
joy  it  was.  No  multitudes  slain  on  distant  battle- 
fields formed  the  gloomy  background  of  this  con- 
queror's triumph.  No  downcast,  broken  captives 
were  led  in  chains  beside  his  chariot.  A  Christian 
man  had  been  steadfast  as  a  rock,  and  had  been  vin- 
dicated, and  for  this  a  city  celebrated.  It  is  good 
to  remember  it. 

As  Athanasius  looked  out  upon  the  brightly 
lighted  city  that  night,  it  is  not  hard  to  conjecture 
what  his  thoughts  were.  A  glad  thankfulness  to 
God,  who  had  so  wonderfully  delivered  him  from 
his  enemies,  and  a  new  consecration  of  the  powers 
of  his  manhood  to  the  Christian  service  of  the  city 
he  loved.  And  we  may  be  sure  that  he  lifted  the 
whole  of  Alexandria  in  prayer  to  God  ere  his  eyes 
closed  in  sleep.  The  Master  Himself  must  have 
seemed  very  near  to  the  great  Egyptian  city  that 
night. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  PERIOD  OF  THE  SECOND   RESTO- 
RATION. 

For  over  nine  years  Athanasius  now  remained  in 
the  actual  position  of  bishop  of  Alexandria.  It  was 
his  longest  period  of  uninterrupted  occupancy  of  his 
office.  The  first  years  of  this  period  were  years  of 
quiet.  It  must  have  been  a  great  joy  to  the  bishop 
to  see  the  Church  progressing  and  prospering  under 
his  leadership.  Constantly  his  position  became 
stronger  until  he  held  the  heart  of  Egypt.  With  the 
Church  at  large  his  relations  were  gratifying.  Over 
four  hundred  bishops  communicated  with  him.  Per- 
haps at  times  he  would  almost  feel  that  his  troubles 
were  over. 

Valens  and  Ursacius,  who  had  been  his  accusers, 
withdrew  their  accusations  and  recanted  their  for- 
mer position.  In  Alexandria  men  came  to  him  at 
night  to  tell  him  that  they  had  taken  the  Arian  at- 
titude through  fear  and  not  through  conviction.  His 
presence  was  a  deep  moral  and  religious  tonic  to  the 
city.  Its  whole  life  was  elevatedt  and  all  good 
things  had  new  emphasis. 

I02 


Period  of  the;  Second  Restoration.      103 

During  these  years  of  quiet  Athanasius  again 
turned  his  attention  to  literary  work.  He  gathered 
together  documents — now  of  priceless  historic  value 
— relating  to  his  own  long  struggle.  These  form 
the  "Apology  Against  the  Arians."  These  docu- 
ments cover  a  period  of  fifteen  years,  and  include, 
first  documents  in  connection  with  the  Council  of 
Sardica,  and  second,  documents  belonging  to  a 
period  previous  to  that  time.  These  give  us  a  clear 
account  of  the  charges  against  Athanasius  and  his 
vindication.  They  deal  with  personal  matter  rather 
than  theological  matters.  Two  sections  were  added 
at  a  later  time,  referring  to  after  events. 

Athanasius  wrote  two  doctrinal  treatises  at  this 
time.  The  first  is  "On  the  Nicene  Formula."  After 
a  brief  reference  to  the  Nicene  Council,  he  discusses 
the  meaning  of  the  word  Son,  lifting  it  above  all 
that  a  creature  could  be.  He  defends  the  use  of  un- 
scriptural  terms  to  express  and  defend  Scriptural 
meaning.  He  refers  to  authorities  in  support  of  the 
council,  and  attacks  the  Arian  symbol  "unoriginate." 

The  other  doctrinal  treatise  deals  with  the  "Opin- 
ions of  Dionysius,"  a  previous  Alexandrian  bishop, 
whose  views  had  been  construed  in  an  Arian  sense, 
against  which  Athanasius  protests. 

Athanasius  wielded  a  facile  pen.    He  had  a  mind 


104  Athanasius:  the:  Hero. 

which  could  make  close  distinctions,  and  he  could 
valiantly  do  battle  with  his  pen. 

The  monastic  movement  was  coming  to  be  of 
great  importance  in  Egypt  at  this  time.  Athanasius, 
we  are  told,  put  himself  at  its  head,  and  his  influence 
was  such  as  to  check  the  tendency  to  extravagance 
inherent  in  the  system.  The  monks  regarded  him 
with  a  warmth  of  admiration  and  loyal  allegiance, 
which  were  to  prove  of  great  service  in  after  years. 

The  time  of  peace  was  to  come  to  an  end  all  too 
soon,  however.  Multitudes  of  earnest  people  with 
no  gift  for  close  thinking  were  dissatisfied  with  the 
Nicene  Creed.  Constantius  had  Arian  sympathies, 
and  no  real  love  for  Athanasius.  There  was  a  strong 
Arian  party,  and  a  new  extreme  type  of  Arianism 
was  making  itself  felt. 

In  the  year  350  A.  D.,  an  event  occurred  which 
must  have  seemed  ominous  to  Athanasius.  This 
was  the  death  of  Constans.  The  soldiers  of  Con- 
stans  had  revolted  under  Magnentius.  The  emperor 
had  been  murdered  and  Magnentius  declared  his 
successor.  Whatever  the  life  of  Constans,  he  had 
been  a  true  friend  to  Athanasius,  and  with  the  pro- 
tection of  his  influence  gone,  the  Alexandrian  bishop 
may  well  have  seen  danger  ahead. 

Magnentius  was  probably  shrewd  enough  to  sus- 


Period  of  the:  Second  Restoration.      105 

pect  that  Athanasius  would  have  a  thorny  path,  with 
Constantius  as  his  sole  protector.  At  any  rate,  he 
sent  a  deputation  to  Athanasius  which  gained  no  en- 
couragement from  him,  but  was  greeted  with  em- 
phatic and  tearful  expressions  of  regret  over  the 
death  of  Constans. 

Constantius,  too,  probably  felt  the  need  of  the 
friendship  of  the  powerful  Athanasius  at  this  crisis, 
when  he  was  about  to  enter  into  a  struggle  with 
Magnentius.  He  sent  a  kind  letter  to  the  bishop, 
intended  to  give  him  assurance  of  the  permanence 
of  his  friendship,  and  the  security  of  his  position  at 
Alexandria. 

In  the  Egyptian  metropolis  prayers  were  offered 
for  the  safety  of  Constantius,  at  the  desire  of  Atha- 
nasius, and  the  people  made  the  prayer  "O,  Christ, 
help  Constantius." 

The  emperor  at  least  kept  his  promise  to  Atha- 
nasius until  after  the  defeat  of  Magnentius.  This 
occurred  in'451  A.  D. 

Valens  and  Ursacius  had  now  repudiated  their 
recantation,  and  were  again  to  be  listed  with  the 
Arians.  In  connection  with  the  defeat  of  Magnen- 
tius at  Mursa,  an  incident  occurred  which  increased 
the  influence  of  Valens,  and  through  him  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Arians.     The  emperor  awaited  the 


106  Athanasius:   the  Hero. 

news  of  the  issue  of  the  battle  in  a  church  with  only 
Bishop  Valens  with  him.  The  latter  skillfully 
learned  the  news  of  the  battle's  result  before  the  em- 
peror's messengers  arrived,  and  announced  the  de- 
feat of  the  enemy  to  Constantius,  as  a  revelation 
from  heaven.  This  greatly  impressed  the  emperor, 
and  fed  his  vanity  at  the  same  time. 

Constantius  emerged  from  his  military  opera- 
tions the  ruler  of  all  of  Christendom.  The  divided 
empire  was  once  more  united  under  one  head. 

Xow  he  could  turn  his  attention  to  designs  which 
had  probably  found  quiet  shelter  in  his  own  mind 
for  a  long  time.  One  of  them  was  the  ruin  of 
Athanasius,  another  was  the  triumph  of  Arianism. 

In  353  A.  D.,  Athanasius,  believing  that  he  had 
cause  for  alarm,  sent  envoys  to  represent  his  cause 
in  the  presence  of  the  emperor.  A  few  days  after 
their  departure,  he  received  a  message  from  Con- 
stantius commanding  him  not  to  send  envoys,  but 
saying  that  his  own  request  to  come  to  the  court  at 
Milan  was  granted.  Now  Athanasius  had  made  no 
such  request.  He  at  once  detected  in  the  message 
a  covert  attempt  to  get  him  away  from  Alexandria. 
So  he  replied  with  combined  astuteness  and  courtesy, 
that  as  he  had  not  requested  to  be  received  at  court, 
he  hesitated  to  act  on  a  misconception.     The  mes- 


Period  of  the;  Second  Restoration.      107 

senger  of  the  emperor  left  Alexandria  with  this 
reply. 

Constantius  held  a  council  at  Aries,  which  con- 
demned Athanasius.  Even  the  Roman  delegate, 
Vincent,  united  in  the  condemnation.  Only  Paul- 
inius,  Bishop  of  Treves,  held  out  in  loyalty  to  the 
bishop  of  Alexandria.  He  was  banished  for  his 
refractory  loyalty  to  his  conscience.  Here  was  a 
suggestion  of  the  way  in  which  the  emperor  would 
deal  with  those  who  opposed  him.  Liberius,  who 
had  succeeded  Julius  as  bishop  of  Rome,  felt  deeply 
the  unfaithfulness  of  Vincent,  the  representative  of 
Rome  at  Aries,  and  is  said  to  have  written  to  Hosius, 
"I  have  resolved  rather  to  die  for  God  than  aban- 
don the  truth."  Both  Liberius  and  Hosius  were 
soon  to  be  put  to  the  test. 

At  the  Lenten  season  in  354  A.  D.,  Athanasius 
faced  a  peculiar  problem  at  Alexandria.  Through 
the  effective  Christian  work  carried  on  under  his 
supervision,  interest  had  so  increased  that  the 
churches  were  not  only  crowded  but  packed.  At 
this  time  some  had  been  injured  in  the  pressure  of 
thronging  people.  Athanasius  was  urged  to  hold 
the  Easter  services  in  a  great  church — the  Caesa- 
reum,  which  was  a  gift  of  Constantius.  This  church 
was  unfinished  and  not  vet  dedicated.    Because  the 


108  Athanasius  :  the  Hero. 

property  technically  belonged  to  the  State,  and  the 
using  of  an  undedicated  church  could  be  construed 
as  an  ecclesiastical  irregularity,  Athanasius  hesitated 
to  comply  with  the  request.  The  people  insisted  that 
rather  than  go  on  with  the  present  crowded  condi- 
tion, they  would  prefer  to  keep  the  Easter  in  the 
open  country.  At  last  Athanasius  yielded.  This 
his  Arian  enemies  were  ready  enough  to  use  against 
him.  Other  accusations  such  as  his  neglect  to  obey 
the  emperor,  when  he  received  the  letter  from  him 
which  practically  summoned  him  to  the  court,  the 
claim  that  he  had  used  his  influence  with  Constans 
against  the  emperor,  and  that  he  had  had  relations 
with  Magnentius,  were  hurled  against  him.  All 
these  he  dealt  with  in  his  "Apology  to  Constantius," 
the  most  finely  constructed  piece  of  writing  he  left 
behind  him.  This  defense,  perhaps,  he  originally 
intended  to  deliver  to  the  emperor.  But  if  such 
thoughts  were  in  his  mind  they  had  to  be  given  up 
when  he  learned  how  deep  was  the  emperor's  hos- 
tility. 

In  355  A.  D.  a  large  council  met  at  Milan  and 
condemned  Athanasius  under  the  lash  of  the  em- 
peror. There  were  those  here  who  defended  the 
Alexandrian  bishop.  The  emperor  was  told  that 
Athanasius  must  be  judged  by  bishops,  not  by  the 


Period  of  the  Second  Restoration.      109 

emperor,  and  that  he  must  not  confuse  canons  with 
imperial  decrees.  "Canons,"  Constantius  cried  out, 
"What  I  wish,  that  is  a  canon."  This  was  the  brief 
and  audacious  declaration  of  the  emperor.  And  it 
boded  very  ill  for  the  future.  Men  found  what  it 
cost  to  be  loyal  to  Athanasius  against  the  emperor. 
A  hundred  and  forty-seven  persons,  clergy  and 
laity,  are  said  to  have  been  banished.  There  is  no 
better  evidence  of  the  power  of  Athanasius  than  the 
wary  way  in  which  the  emperor  approached  him  to 
secure  his  downfall.  First  he  armed  himself  with 
the  decisions  of  two  councils,  dictated  to  by  him; 
then  he  proceeded  to  deal  with  men  loyal  to  the  great 
bishop  and  the  cause  for  which  he  stood.  How  it 
must  have  torn  the  heart  of  Athanasius  as  he 
thought  of  the  bishops,  clergy,  and  laymen  suffer- 
ing in  exile  for  the  Nicene  position  and  for  him. 

During  these  years  his  alert  eyes  had  been  watch- 
ing the  signs  of  the  times.  And  he  could  but  feel 
that  the  situation  was  becoming  more  and  more 
ominous  for  himself. 

We  have  preserved  to  us  a  letter  which  was  writ- 
ten to  Dracontius,  a  monk,  who  had  been  elected  to 
the  office  of  bishop,  but  was  trying  to  escape  it.  Atha- 
nasius summons  him  to  the  office.  He  is  said  to 
have  obeyed  and  to  have  been  exiled  afterward.    It 


no  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

was  a  costly  thing  to  be  a  faithful  orthodox  bishop 
in  those  days.  The  time  had  now  come  for  a  de- 
cisive blow  to  be  struck  at  Athanasius.  In  the  sum- 
mer, 355  A.  D.,  an  imperial  notary  named  Diogenes 
came  to  the  city  and  used  every  effort  to  dislodge 
Athanasius.  He  failed,  however,  and  left  Alexan- 
dria in  December.  In  January  of  356  A.  D.,  the 
General  Syrianus,  accompanied  by  a  notary  named 
Hilarius,  came  to  the  city.  Athanasius  seeing  the 
trend  of  events,  asked  Syrianus  if  he  had  any  letter 
from  the  emperor.  He  replied  that  he  had  not. 
Athanasius  then  produced  the  letter  the  emperor 
had  written  to  him  previously  promising  protection. 
The  bishop  had  very  strong  support  in  Alexandria, 
and,  under  pressure,  Syrianus  promised  not  to  pro- 
ceed against  Athanasius  without  a  letter  from  the 
emperor.  This  promise  he  made  "by  the  life  of  the 
emperor"  himself.  This  form  of  solemn  declaration 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  considered  very  bind- 
ing by  Syrianus,  for  in  a  few  months  he  broke  it. 
If  he  had  sworn  by  the  faithfulness  of  the  emperor, 
perhaps  one  could  have  understood  the  oath's  not 
being  very  binding. 

On  February  8,  356  A.  D.,  Athanasius  was  hold- 
ing an  all-night  service  in  preparation  for  the  com- 
munion service  of  the  following  day,  at  the  Church 


Period  oe  the  Second  Restoration.      hi 

of  St.  Theonas,  one  of  the  largest  in  the  city. 
Syrianus,  with  five  thousand  soldiers,  surrounded 
the  church.  Athanasius  did  not  lose  his  presence  of 
mind.  He  sat  down  on  his  throne  and  ordered  the 
deacon  to  read  the  130th  Psalm,  the  people  respond- 
ing, "for  His  mercy  endureth  forever."  Soon  the 
soldiers  had  burst  in.  Athanasius  refused  to  escape 
until  the  people  had  departed  in  safety.  Meanwhile 
arrows  were  flying,  bright  swords  were  gleaming 
murderously  in  the  lamplight,  and  the  soldiers  shout- 
ing fiercely.  Some  of  the  people  were  trampled  to 
death,  but  most  escaped,  and  at  last  some  monks  and 
clergy  seized  Athanasius,  now  in  a  fainting  condi- 
tion, and  eluding  the  soldiers,  succeeded  in  escaping 
with  him.  When  he  revived,  he  was  full  of  thank- 
fulness at  the  wonderful  escape,  and  recognizing 
that  if  his  life  was  to  be  preserved  he  must  go  into 
hiding,  disappeared,  no  one  knew  whither. 

So  another  period  of  his  life  passed  by.  During 
these  years  he  had  become  so  powerful  that  we  have 
seen  how  carefully  even  the  emperor  felt  it  neces- 
sary to  move  in  proceeding  against  him.  If  he  had 
been  a  false  man  this  power  might  have  been  mis- 
used and  made  the  means  to  the  accomplishment  of 
ends  of  his  own.  But  power  to  Athanasius  meant 
just  the  larger  opportunity,  to  serve  Christ,  and  to 


ii2  Athanasius:  the:  Hero. 

advance  His  kingdom.  All  his  resources  he  used 
for  these  great  ends.  It  is  a  great  man  who  can 
stand  on  a  summit  of  influence  without  tottering. 
This  bishop  did  not  become  dizzy.  He  was  great 
enough  and  true  enough  to  stand  the  strain. 

"When  exile  now  came  it  was  only  a  great  mani- 
festation of  the  power  of  Athanasius.  A  nation  was 
his.  The  whole  country  became  his  protector.  The 
emperor  pursued  him  in  vain.  Egypt  opened  its 
sheltering  arms  and  held  him  safe. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  THIRD  EXILE. 

When  Athanasius  first  retired  from  Alexandria, 
it  was  his  purpose  to  seek  a  personal  interview  with 
the  Emperor  Constantius.  Once  he  had  personally 
appealed  to  his  father,  Constantine,  and  why  might 
this  not  be  effective  with  the  son?  With  so  many 
intermediaries,  serious  misunderstandings  might 
arise,  and  the  acts  of  a  man's  subordinates  do  not 
always  represent  him.  But  if  Athanasius  could  see 
the  emperor,  face  to  face,  could  set  before  him  the 
whole  situation  in  its  true  light,  surely  there  would 
be  hope  of  justice.  So  Athanasius  felt,  but  as  news 
of  fierce  persecution  and  of  the  placing  of  a  most 
unworthy  man  in  the  see  of  Alexandria  came,  he 
must  have  felt  more  and  more  the  uselessness  of 
such  an  appeal.  And  when  he  learned  that  the  em- 
peror had  written  a  letter  referring  to  him  as  a 
criminal,  and  another  to  Ethiopia,  asking  that  Fru- 
mentius  be  sent  to  the  "venerable  George,"  that  he 
might  be  corrected  in  respect  of  errors  imbibed 
8  113 


ii4  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

from  "the  wicked  Athanasius,"  and  receive  knowl- 
edge of  the  Supreme  God,  it  became  evident  to  him 
that  he  had  nothing  to  hope  from  the  emperor. 

We  must  look  a  little  more  closely  at  what  trans- 
pired in  Alexandria  after  Athanasius  left  it.  For  a 
time  no  attempt  was  made  to  get  the  Churches  into 
the  possession  of  the  Arians.  But  later  George,  a 
Cappadocian — a  former  pork  contractor  and  a  man 
of  unenviable  reputation —  was  sent  to  be  bishop  in 
the  place  of  Athanasius.  At  the  same  time  a  substi- 
tute creed  was  offered  to  the  people  in  the  place  of 
the  formula  of  Nicaea.  When  Athanasius  heard  of 
this  he  vigorously  protested  in  a  letter  to  the 
Egyptian  and  Libyan  clergy.  He  warned  them 
against  the  new  creed  and  urged  them  to  stead- 
fastness. 

George  had  his  carnival  of  persecution,  and  it  is 
an  ugly  story  as  it  comes  down  to  us.  Murder,  ban- 
ishment, and  terrorizing  were  the  order  of  the  day. 
Sixteen  bishops  are  said  to  have  been  banished  and 
many  others  to  have  fled.  Others  gave  a  fright- 
ened submission. 

George  was  such  an  intolerable  man  in  the  office 
of  bishop  that  later  he  barely  escaped  with  his  life, 
so  exasperated  did  the  people  become,  and  when, 
after  a  long  absence,  he  finally  returned  into  the 


The:  Third  Exile.  115 

city  again,  after  the  death  of  Constantius,  the  peo- 
ple mercilessly  killed  him. 

But  the  tragedy  of  George's  death  takes  us  far 
in  the  future,  and  what  Athanasius  now  heard  was 
the  story  of  his  reign  of  violence  in  Alexandria. 
Search  was  made  everywhere  for  the  fugitive  bishop 
who  had  so  strangely  disappeared  from  view.  A 
price  was  put  upon  his  head.  Men  sought  him  with 
orders  to  bring  him  dead  or  alive.  But  he  remained 
safe.  He  trusted  in  the  loyalty  of  Egypt,  and  it- 
did  not  fail  him. 

Much  of  his  time  was  spent  with  the  monks  in 
their  cells.  If  he  was  pursued  word  was  quickly 
passed,  and  he  was  sent  from  one  monastery  to  an- 
other. He  understood  these  Christian  men  of  the 
desert,  and  they  loved  him  and  would  have  risked 
anything  for  him. 

We  must  not  think  of  Athanasius  as  simply  lead- 
ing the  life  of  a  vagrant  wanderer  in  these  years  of 
exile.  He  was  one  of  the  most  powerful  men  in 
the  Church  in  many  ways,  fugitive  as  he  was.  News 
of  everything  was  brought  to  him,  and  his  messages, 
letters,  and  treatises  flashed  back  their  words  of 
encouragement,  of  direction,  of  argument  to  Egypt 
and  far  beyond  its  confines.  The  little  man  sitting 
on  a  mat  in  the  sun-scorched  desert,  writing  busily, 


u6  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

was  a  right  royal  personage,  not  to  be  omitted  from 
the  consideration  of  any  one  who  would  understand 
the  life  of  the  time. 

Athanasius  was  very  daring.  He  is  said  even  to 
have  ventured  into  Alexandria,  and  there  is  some 
ground  for  thinking  him  to  have  been  present  in 
disguise  when  bishops  met  in  council. 

This  third  exile  of  Athanasius  lasted  for  six 
years.  During  this  period  he  found  time  to  take  up 
the  work  of  authorship.  A  mighty  pen  it  was  he 
wielded,  and  every  word  he  wrote  was  received  by 
his  followers  with  eagerness.  He  was  keeping  alive 
the  flame  of  loyalty  to  the  faith  as  he  understood  it. 
These  manuscripts  written  in  the  desert  are  like 
battle-flags  from  old  fields  of  strife.  Through  them 
Athanasius  spoke  to  the  Church  such  stirring  words 
as  it  could  not  refuse  to  hear,  and  having  heard 
could  not  forget. 

The  "Apology  to  Constantius/'  to  which  refer- 
ence has  been  already  made,  was  completed.  His 
flight  from  Alexandria  had  been  stigmatized  as 
cowardice,  and  he  wrote  an  "Apology  for  His 
Flight,"  to  defend  himself  from  the  infamy  of  this 
charge.  He  cites  the  example  of  the  Lord  and  of 
saints  of  the  past  as  a  precedent  for  removing  one's 
self  in  the  time  of  danger.    A  man  must  be  ready  to 


The;  Third  Exiix  117 

give  his  life  as  a  testimony  to  his  loyalty  to  the  truth, 
if  necessary,  but  not  rashly. 

The  defense  shows  a  consciousness  that  his  ene- 
mies' anger  at  not  being  able  to  kill  him,  is  the  real 
cause  of  their  accusation.  There  are  some  tender 
words  about  Hosius,  and  one  finds  an  expression  of 
the  thought,  that  if  it  is  wrong  to  flee,  it  is  worse  to 
persecute. 

This  work  of  Athanasius  has  a  quality  of  prac- 
tical good  sense  which  appeals  to  the  reader.  There 
is  no  diseased  hunger  for  martyrdom,  such  as  some- 
times appeared  in  the  Church.  There  is  the  caution 
of  a  really  brave  man. 

To  this  period  belong  the  "Letter  to  Serapion,', 
Bishop  of  Thmuis,  giving  an  account  of  the  death 
of  Arius,  and  several  doctrinal  letters  to  Serapion. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  the  "History  of  the 
Arians,"  coming  from  the  time  of  the  third  exile, 
was,  in  part  at  least,  written  under  the  supervision 
of  Athanasius,  rather  than  by  him  directly.  Per- 
haps this  suggestion  is  inspired  rather  by  a  desire  to 
believe  that  we  need  not  trace  the  fierceness  and 
passion  contained  in  it  to  Athanasius,  than  by  more 
substantial  arguments. 

Athanasius  was  a  man  and  an  Oriental,  besides 
being  a  saint,  and  in  this  account  of  the  long  con- 


u8  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

tinued  cruelties  of  the  Arians,  indignation  at  white 
heat  breaks  out  into  most  vigorous  expression.  The 
events  described  are  those  we  have  already  related, 
and  there  need  be  no  repetition  of  them  here.  We 
will  not  need  to  imitate  the  vehement,  angry  ex- 
pressions of  Athanasius,  but  we  can  surely  under- 
stand them,  and  there  are  noble  passages  we  are 
glad  to  remember.  Again,  in  this  treatise,  persecu- 
tion is  condemned.  If  the  Church  could  have 
learned  then  and  for  all  time,  the  inherent  evil  of 
persecution,  what  a  change  would  have  been  made 
in  its  history.  How  many  a  page,  stained  with 
blood  need  never  have  been  written.  But  long  cen- 
turies were  to  pass  before  the  Church  came  to  un- 
derstand that  persecution  is  a  weapon  no  Christian 
ever  has  a  right  to  use. 

A  most  important  series  of  works  written  by 
Athanasius  during  the  third  exile,  is  found  in  the 
"Four  Discourses"  (or  orations)  against  the  Arians. 
These  discourses  have  been  described  as  "the  sources 
whence  arguments  have  been  borrowed  by  all  who 
have  since  written  in  behalf  of  the  Divinity  of  the 
Word." 

The  First  Discourse  sets  Arianism  and  the  ortho- 
dox faith  sharply  against  each  other.  To  Athanasius, 
the  Arians  with  theii  Christ  a  creature  "who  once 


The  Third  Exhx  119 

was  not,"  alterable,  and  God  by  courtesy  of  a  high 
name,  are  not  Christians  at  all.  To  him  the  Chris- 
tian view  sees  in  Christ  an  essentially  divine  per- 
son, part  and  parcel  of  the  divine  nature,  inherently 
God.  He  deals  with  Arian  objections  and  Scripture 
references,  on  which  they  depend,  with  an  acute 
sense  of  their  inconsistencies,  and  a  constant  sense 
of  the  things  which  must  be  preserved  in  a  true 
Christian's  thought  about  his  Lord.  To  him  splen- 
did phrases  could  never  deify  a  being  who  in  reality 
was  only  a  creature.  And  Christianity  with  the 
most  wonderful  and  God-favored  creature  at  the 
center  of  it,  is  Christianity  no  more.  It  was  no  bat- 
tle about  words.  It  was  a  battle  about  realities. 
And  words  were  involved  in  just  so  much  as  they 
preserved  or  lost  sight  of  the  great  reality  for  which 
Athanasius  contended — the  reality  of  the  Godhead 
of  Jesus  Christ.  This  amazing  insight  as  to  what 
was  really  vital  in  the  controversy,  the  strength  to 
fight  for  that  vital  thing  through  years  and  years, 
and  the  skill  to  use  the  sword  of  argument  with  ex- 
ceedingly fine  effectiveness,  give  Athanasius  his 
unique  position  as  a  theologian.  He  is  at  home 
with  subtle  distinctions,  with  delicate  penetrating 
irony,  but  above  all  these  things  towers  the  great 
fact  that  in  the  midst  of  cloudy  and  hazy  thinking, 


120  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

he  saw  the  true  Christ — the  God-man — the  basis  of 
all  the  hope  and  of  all  the  life  of  the  Christian 
Church. 

The  Second  Discourse  predominantly  deals  with 
an  Old  Testament  text  (Prov.  viii,  22)  on 
which  the  Arians  placed  great  weight.  Now  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  would  be  a  daring  thing  to  defend 
a  dogmatic  reference  to  Christ  in  this  passage  about 
wisdom  being  formed  in  the  beginning  of  Jehovah's 
way,  before  his  works  of  old.  The  most  which  can 
be  derived  from  it  of  Messianic  significance  is  prob- 
ably a  sense  of  the  richness  of  Jehovah's  life,  which 
prepared  the  way  for  a  belief  in  the  Godhead,  as 
something  more  than  the  ceaseless  existence  of  a 
lonely,  only  one.  If  it  is  but  a  figure  of  speech  it 
shows  that  even  the  Monotheistic  Hebrew  had  to 
make  the  life  of  Jehovah  rich  and  full.  It  was  a 
mental  movement,  which  would  at  least  help  to  pre- 
pare the  mind,  to  welcome  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity when  it  came.  But  in  the  days  of  Athanasius 
both  sides  assumed  the  text  as  a  full-fledged  Chris- 
tian statement-  So  while  this  treatise  is  full  of  in- 
genuity, and  its  sense  of  what  Christ  was,  is  of  the 
utmost  value,  the  detail  of  its  exegesis  is  not  likely 
to  prove  very  impressive  to  a  modern.  This  must 
be  said  for  Athanasius,  however.     He  handled  the 


The  Third  Exile.  121 

mental  implements  of  his  time  in  the  thought  forms 
of  his  time. 

Indeed,  he  could  not  have  done  otherwise,  and  if 
he  could  it  would  have  been  less  effective  then  than 
what  he  actually  did.  A  work  which  fit  into  the 
thinking  of  the  time,  and  guided  it  toward  the  right 
goal,  was  far  and  away  more  valuable  than  a  work 
whose  detailed  exegesis  would  be  accepted  by  men, 
centuries  afterward,  but  would  be  utterly  misunder- 
stood at  the  time  when  it  was  written. 

Men  have  to  live  in  a  particular  age  and  more  or 
less  to  be  held  in  check  by  its  limitations.  We  will 
not  think  condescending  thoughts  of  Athanasius,  be- 
cause his  mind  moved  in  the  channels  of  the  fourth 
century  thought.  Often  the  forms  of  his  thought 
are  but  the  shell,  and  in  this  controversy  the  kernel, 
the  thing  he  was  righting  for,  is  of  eternal  value. 
He  lived  in  the  days  of  bow  and  arrow  exegesis, 
and  we  will  not  foolishly  blame  him  for  not  using 
a  rifle.  The  arrows  from  his  quiver  did  their  work. 
The  Third  Discourse  deals  principally  with  texts 
from  the  Gospels,  and  philosophical  considerations 
suggested  by  them.  There  is  one  example  of  ex- 
ceedingly poor  exegesis  where  Athanasius  seems 
to  hold  that  both  our  Lord  and  Paul  said  they  did 
not  know  a  thing,  which  they  really  knew,  and  the 


122  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

treatment  of  our  Lord's  human  experience  is  not 
adequate.  Future  theological  struggles  were  to 
make  room  for  closer,  clearer,  and  more  satisfactory 
thinking  than  Athanasius  had  done  in  respect  of 
some  of  these  things.  But  except  on  his  own  great 
subject  where  all  was  clear  and  strong,  one  can  not 
expect  Athanasius  to  speak  with  equal  insight.  He 
was  not  a  modern  theologian,  with  centuries  'of 
Christian  thinking  to  check,  correct,  and  guide  his 
own.  And  even  modern  theologians  with 'this  great 
heritage  are  by  no  means  always  satisfactory. 

The  Fourth  Discourse  is  principally  the  refuta- 
tion of  a  form  of  Sabellianism  which  was  connected 
with  the  name  of  Marcellus,  the  friend  of  Athana- 
sius. The  name  of  the  former  is  not  mentioned,  but  in 
the  discourse,  Athanasius  repudiates  the  tendency 
toward  ignoring  the  distinctions  in  personality  in 
the  Godhead,  which  was  the  cause  of  distrust  in 
Marcellus.  It  was  important  that  the  Church  should 
understand  that  no  such  tendency  would  receive  en- 
couragement from  Athanasius. 

Surveying  these  works  of  the  exiled  Alexandrian 
bishop,  it  begins  to  look  as  if  the  desert  might  in- 
deed become  a  fruitful  place. 

We  need  to  remember  what  courage  and  strength 
of  character  were  required  to  lead  a  man  of  sixty, 


The  Third  Exile.  123 

cast  out  of  his  bishopric  and  his  city,  with  only  the 
prospect  of  dreary  and  difficult  years  as  a  fugitive 
wanderer  before  him,  to  keep  his  hold  on  life,  its 
problems,  and  its  work,  and  perform  such  tasks  of 
authorship  as  those  of  which  these  treatises  are  the 
product.  The  silences  of  the  desert  became  vocal 
when  they  sheltered  Athanasius.  And  men  realized 
that  the  exile  was  so  alive  and  so  resourceful  that 
many  must  have  felt  that  he  might  emerge  from  the 
desert  into  a  new  future  even  yet. 

The  years  of  the  exile  of  Athanasius  had  been 
years  of  suffering  for  others  beside  himself.  The 
venerable  Hosius,  his  head  white  with  the  snows  of 
a  hundred  winters,  had  been  approached  with  the 
end  of  securing  his  connivance  with  the  emperor's 
plans.  The  aged  man,  father  of  the  bishops,  firmly 
refused.  Constantius  had  ways  of  dealing  with  men 
who  thwarted  his  plans,  and  he  had  little  regard  for 
age  or  ecclesiastical  dignity.  For  a  year  the  old 
man  was  so  mistreated  that  at  last,  broken  and  con- 
fused, he  signed  an  Arian  Creed.  But  even  then  he 
would  not  sign  the  condemnation  of  Athanasius. 
Hosius  lived  to  express  his  repudiation  of  what  had 
been  dragged  from  him,  and  died  in  full  loyalty  to 
the  Nicene  Creed. 

One  feels  only  pity  for  this  maltreated  old  man, 


124  Athanasius:  the:  Hero. 

who  for  a  while  lost  his  way.  We  are  willing  to  re- 
member him  rather  by  his  great  years  of  Christian 
service.  But  for  those  who  led  him  through  such 
a  hard,  thorny  pathway  in  his  tottering  age,  we  feel 
a  very  lively  scorn.  Constantius  was  paying  a  high 
price  to  dictate  the  faith  of  the  world,  and  utterly 
defeat  Athanasius. 

One  of  the  brutal  methods  of  this  persecution  of 
Christians,  by  a  nominally  Christian  emperor,  was 
the  isolation  of  the  exiles.  So  separated  from  each 
other  they  lost  the  inspiration  of  suffering  together, 
and  of  giving  each  other  mutual  encouragement. 
It  was  a  cruel  ingenuity  which  hit  upon  this  method 
of  breaking  their  wills.  This  method  had  been  used 
with  Hosius  and  was  to  be  used  with  another  bul- 
wark of  orthodoxy,  Liberius,  of  Rome. 

The  emperor  sent  a  eunuch  named  Eusebius  to 
the  Roman  bishop  to  secure  his  acquiescence  in  the 
condemnation  of  Athanasius,  and  his  communica- 
tion with  the  Arians. 

He  emphasized  his  request  by  the  offer  of  gifts 
from  the  emperor.  But  Liberius  would  not  be 
bribed,  and  firmly  refused.  He  would  not  even  al- 
low the  gifts  Eusebius  brought  to  be  accepted  by 
one  of  the  Churches  of  the  city,  to  which  they  were 
offered. 


The  Third  Exile.  125 

Constantius  now  sent  to  have  Liberius  brought 
before  him.  If  necessary,  violence  was  to  be  used  to 
bring  him.  To  avoid  the  danger  of  rousing  the  city, 
Liberius  left  by  night.  In  the  emperor's  presence 
he  did  not  quail,  but  still  refused  to  condemn  Atha- 
nasius  or  sign  an  Arian  creed.  He  was  sent  off  to 
exile,  spurning  an  offer  of  money  from  the  em- 
peror and  empress.  Right  manfully  and  faithfully  he 
had  stood  for  the  truth.  But  two  years  of  exile  alone 
were  too  much  for  him.  He  lost  the  grip  of  his 
manhood,  signed  the  condemnation  of  Athanasius, 
and  a  creed  omitting  the  great  Nicene  watchword. 
Those  were  hard,  hard  days. 

One  feels  a  sad  sympathy  for  Liberius.  But 
if  only  he  had  remained  steadfast,  what  words  of 
joyful,  eager  praise  would  leap  to  our  lips !  In  the 
presence  of  his  failure  we  feel  an  awed  sense  of 
what  mighty  and  enduring  courage  has  been  needed 
in  great  crises  in  the  Church,  and  how  even  a  noble 
past  did  not  save  a  man  from  painful  and  tragic 
failure  in  a  later  time  of  stress. 

The  time  was  one  of  confusing  creed  produc- 
tion. But  under  all  the  confusion  the  forming  of 
new  parties  and  new  alliances,  some  important 
things  were  really  happening.  The  conservative 
element  was  moving  toward  the  Nicene  position. 


126  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

The  two  councils  of  Ariminum  and  Seleucia 
were  called  to  represent  the  Church.  Now  was  an 
opportunity  to  express  the  faith.  In  the  Council  of 
Ariminum  men  who  really  did  not  believe  in  Arian- 
ism  were  led  to  compromise  themselves.  It  is  a 
shameful  story  of  ecclesiastical  intrigue  with  im- 
perial connivance.  The  council  at  Ariminum  be- 
gan well,  but  by  a  combination  of  underhand  ac- 
tivities at  last  found  itself  closed,  and  the  faith  given 
over  to  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  Valens,  ingenius  in 
duplicity,  was  the  master  of  ceremonies  in  the  un- 
doing of  the  real  work  of  the  council,  so  that  in  per- 
plexity and  confusion  it  lost  its  bearings  and  signed 
the  Arian  creed.  The  men  who  met  at  Seleucia  to 
represent  the  East,  ended  by  ratifying  an  Arian 
creed,  and  the  upshot  of  the  whole  matter  was  that 
the  Church  found  itself,  nominally  at  least,  with  its 
face  turned  away  from  Nicsea. 

But  it  was  more  nominally  than  really.  The 
world  did  not  actually  want  to  be  Arian.  A  good 
portion  perhaps  felt  simply  the  utter  weariness  of 
the  conflict  and  wanted  rest.  But  it  was  becoming 
evident  to  a  man  of  discernment  that  even  among 
those  who  opposed  certain  words  in  the  Nicene  for- 
mula, the  difficulty  was  verbal  rather  than  real.  The 
conservative  movement  toward  the  Nicene  position 


The  Third  Exile.  127 

was  indeed  under  way.  Athanasius  saw  this,  and 
nobly  did  he  take  advantage  of  it.  He  wrote  his 
"De  Synodis,"  in  which  he  showed  the  utmost  kind- 
liness and  sympathy  for  those  who  differed  from 
him  rather  in  word  than  reality,  and  opened  the 
way  for  an  alliance  with  them.  He  was  sure  the 
time  would  come  when,  with  a  fuller  understanding, 
they  would  accept  the  very  phraseology  of  the 
Nicene  Creed.  In  the  meantime  the  important  thing 
was  the  thing  held,  not  the  mere  word  used  to  ex- 
press it,  and  he  heartily  held  out  his  hand  to  those 
who  were  profoundly  at  one  with  him,  across  the 
chasm  of  differences  in  phraseology. 

It  has  been  declared  that  Athanasius  surpasses 
even  himself  in  this  offer  of  peace  after  years  of 
conflict.  Struggle  had  not  crystallized  in  him  a 
habit  of  strife.  When  the  right  time  came  he  was 
ready  and  even  eager  to  utter  a  word  of  peace. 

But  "De  Synodis"  is  not  an  offer  of  compromise 
on  any  essential.  It  is  not  a  change  of  front  savor- 
ing of  the  lapse  of  Liberius.  Athanasius  saw  clearly 
what  was  the  vital  thing  in  the  struggle,  and  when 
he  saw  that  a  word  of  peace  was  consistent  with 
loyalty  to  that  vital  thing,  he  gladly  uttered  it.  It 
was  a  very  great  man  who  wrote  "De  Synodis." 
And  over  the  Church  many  must  have  read  it  with 


128  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

new  appreciation  for  Athanasius,  and  lor  what 
Nicsea  had  really  meant. 

Though  Athanasius  did  not  know  it,  the  days  of 
his  third  exile  were  drawing  to  a  close.  Julian  had 
escaped  the  general  massacre  which  had  disposed 
of  most  of  those  who  might  later  make  pretentions 
to  the  throne,  which  the  soldiers  had  perpetrated 
at.  the  time  of  the  accession  of  Constantius.  He 
had  grown  up  to  hate  Christianity,  and  first  secretly, 
but  later  openly,  to  embrace  paganism.  He  was 
proclaimed  Augustus  in  Paris,  360  A.  D.  He  in- 
creased rapidly  in  power,  and  war  between  him  and 
Constantius  seemed  imminent.  But  in  the  year  361 
A.  D.  Constantius  died  and  Julian  became  emperor. 
A  fever  had  carried  off  Constantius  and  saved  the 
empire  from  civil  war. 

At  this  time,  George,  the  usurper  of  Athanasius's 
see  at  Alexandria,  was  murdered,  and  Julian  an- 
nounced that  all  bishops  exiled  by  Constantius  were 
permitted  to  return.  Twelve  days  after  the  posting 
of  the  edict  Athanasius  was  again  in  Alexandria. 
It  is  an  example  of  the  irony  of  history  that  the 
death  of  a  nominally  Christian  emperor,  and  the 
accession  of  a  pagan  to  the  throne,  led  to  the  return 
from  exile  of  the  greatest  Christian  bishop  alive  in 
the  Church. 


The  Third  Exile.  129 

With  strange  feelings  of  mingled  gladness  and 
awe,  Athanasius  must  have  found  himself  in  Alex- 
andria again.  When  he  returned  before  it  was  to  a 
city  flushed  with  joy,  and  full  of  a  new  sense  of  the 
meaning  of  Christianity.  Now  the  blood  of  George, 
the  intruder,  was  upon  the  hands  of  the  angry  mul- 
titude, and  Athanasius  must  have  felt  that  the  city 
was  in  a  sense  contaminated  by  the  crime.  But 
loyal,  earnest  hearts  would  be  waiting  to  receive 
him.  And  if  there  was  great  wickedness  in  the  city 
all  the  more  was  its  bishop  needed. 

The  city  itself  must  have  felt  something  of  the 
meaning  of  his  return.  When  Athanasius  entered 
every  good  thing  in  the  city  increased  in  power,  and 
every  bad  thing  was  weakened. 

.  It  was  a  man  who  could  now  be  called  old  who 
came  back  to  his  bishopric  on  February  21,  362 
A.  D.  Six  years  of  desert  exile  had  left  their 
marks  upon  him,  since  he  had  publicly  appeared  in 
the  city.  But  though  older,  he  had  gained  in  the 
serenity  which  comes  of  trustful  heroic  endurance. 
And  he  was  ready  to  do,  and  to  suffer  more  for  the 
sake  of  the  Divine  Christ  and  His  kingdom. 


CHAPTER  X. 
THE  LAST  YEARS  OF  ATHANASIUS. 

Th£  Emperor  Julian  was  an  enthusiastic  pagan, 
and  he  heartily  disliked  Christianity.  We  are  not 
very  much  surprised  that  he  turned  from  a  Chris- 
tianity which  he  had  seen  only  in  a  very  unfavorable 
light.  All  his  family,  except  his  brother  and  him- 
self, had  been  killed  at  the  accession  of  Constantius, 
and  he  had  seen  the  repulsive,  political,  and  unreal 
side  of  the  religion  which  Constantius  professed. 
To  him  Christianity  was  an  absurdity  of  a  thousand 
jarring  sects,  and  when  he  came  to  the  throne  it 
was  his  ambition  to  restore  paganism,  and  to  see 
all  the  power  and  influence  of  Christianity  disap- 
pear. He  did  not  wish  to  assume  the  role  of  a  per- 
secutor, however,  and  chose  what  seemed  to  him  a 
brilliant  plan.  He  favored  the  pagans,  but  allowed 
the  Christians  much  liberty,  trusting  to  the  inner 
quarrels  and  disputes  of  the  Church  to  make  it 
ridiculous,  and  ultimately  to  lead  to  its  downfall. 

But  exactly  the  opposite  of  what  he  hoped  re- 
sulted. It  was  a  sobering  thing  to  all  the  Chris- 
130 


The  Last  Years  of  Athanasius.        131 

tians  to  have  a  heathen  emperor  on  the  throne.  It 
drew  them  together,  and  tended  to  make  them  seek  a 
unified  front  before  a  common  foe.  Further  than 
this  there  was  a  movement  toward  clearing  in  the 
theological  atmosphere.  Earnest  men  were  coming 
to  see  that  they  were  not  so  far  apart  after  all,  and 
that  among  masses  of  true  Christian  people  there 
had  been  misunderstanding,  rather  than  actual  dis- 
agreement. 

Then  a  wise  leadership  in  the  Church  began  to 
make  the  most  of  these  facts  and  to  move  in  the 
direction  of  peace.  And  here  as  the  figure  of  most 
significance  we  come  upon  Athanasius. 

With  a  mastery  of  the  real  meaning  of  the 
theological  situation,  he  had  already  written  "De 
Synodis/'  in  which  an  olive  branch  was  held  out  to 
those  whose  differences  from  the  Nicene  party  were 
verbal  rather  than  real.  Now  he  saw  that  the  time 
had  come  to  take  another  step.  Returned  to  Alex- 
andria and  again  occupying  his  office  as  bishop,  he 
was  a  strategic  element  in  the  whole  situation.  And 
he  did  exactly  the  right  thing.  He  held  a  council 
to  deal  with  the  pressing  problems  of  the  Church. 
It  was  made  up  of  but  twenty-one  bishops,  but  it 
was  far  and  away  more  important  than  councils 
more  pretentious  numerically. 


132  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

One  of  the  things  which  had  to  be  settled  was 
what  to  do  with  men  who  had  been  committed  to 
or  involved  in  Arianism  and  now  wanted  to  resume 
their  place  in  orthodoxy.  Under  the  wise  leader- 
ship of  Athanasius,  it  was  decided  that  no  humiliat- 
ing conditions  would  be  required.  A  profession  of 
the  Nicene  position  so  emphasized  as  to  insure  the 
allegiance  to  a  really  orthodox  position  was  all  that 
was  to  be  asked.  By  this  measure  a  great  step  was 
taken  toward  securing  the  peace  of  the  Church. 
Disputes  had  arisen  regarding  the  use  of  the  word 
hypostasis.  The  real  occasion  of  these  disputes  was 
that  by  some  the  word  was  taken  to  mean  essence, 
while  by  others  it  was  taken  to  mean  person.  Those 
who  used  it  with  the  sense  of  essence  spoke  of  there 
being  one  hypostasis  in  the  Godhead.  Those  who 
used  it  in  the  sense  of  person,  spoke  of  three  hypos- 
tases in  the  Godhead.  Now  clearly  all  that  was 
needed  to  reconcile  these  two  parties  was  that  each 
should  understand  what  the  other  meant.  The 
council  dealt  with  this  situation  and  lifted  the  dis- 
cussion into  clarity,  so  that  there  need  be  no  more 
misunderstanding. 

Some  problems  which  had  been  raised  regarding 
the  nature  of  Christ  were  looked  into,  with  the  con- 
clusion that  those  holding  positions  which  had  been 


The  Last  Years  of  Athanasius.        133 

questioned,  could  not  be  classed  heretical.  A  prac- 
tical difficulty  arising  out  of  the  state  of  affairs  at 
Antioch  was  considered,  and  decisions  were  reached 
which  would  have  brought  peace  there,  had  not  the 
hasty  work  of  one  confessor  more  enthusiastic  than 
wise,  brought  new  and  unconquerable  confusion 
into  the  situation  before  the  results  of  the  council 
were  brought  to  the  city. 

The  Tome,  or  synodal  letter,  written  to  the  peo- 
ple of  Antioch  by  Athanasius,  tells  of  the  council 
and  its  conclusions.  This  letter  has  been  very 
warmly  praised,  and  the  spirit  of  sweet  reasonable- 
ness it  exhibits  is  an  agreeable  contrast  to  much  that 
was  harsh  and  relentless  in  this  stormy  age. 

The  council  had  been  conducted  with  rare  states- 
manship and  moving  along  these  lines  the  Church 
might  come  to  new  unity,  prestige,  and  power.  But 
all  this  was  far  enough  from  the  desire  of  Julian. 
As  we  have  seen  the  part  Christianity  was  to  play 
in  the  program  he  had  outlined  was  that  of  falling 
into  confusion,  as  a  result  of  its  inherent  weakness. 
He  was  angered  now  that  the  Church  refused  to 
play  the  part.  We  will  not  be  mistaken  in  conclud- 
ing that  he  came  to  feel  that  one  of  the  causes  of 
the  new  vitality  the  Church  was  exhibiting  was 
Athanasius,  Bishop  of  Alexandria. 


134  Athanasius  :   the  Hsro. 

After  writing  that  he  had  never  meant  Atha- 
nasius to  take  possession  of  his  see,  he  ordered  him 
to  leave  Alexandria  and  Egypt.  We  can  feel  the 
hatred  Julian  had  for  the  Alexandrian  bishop,  and 
also  his  sense  of  the  power  of  the  bishop,  in  the  bit- 
ing epithets  he  used  regarding  him.  He  was  "the 
enemy  of  the  gods,"  "  a  meddler,"  "a  miscreant," 
and  "a  paltry  manikin."  Emperors  did  not  waste 
so  many  vigorous  words  on  weaklings.  It  took 
strong  men  so  to  arouse  them.  Julian  was  particu- 
larly incensed  against  Athanasius  because  he  had 
dared  to  baptize  Greek  ladies  during  his  reign.  It 
was  galling  enough  to  have  the  Christianity  which 
was  to  have  died  of  its  own  folly,  making  inroads 
on  paganism,  so  when  Athanasius  had  been  eight 
months  in  Alexandria,  he  found  himself  again  con- 
demned to  exile,  with  the  threat  of  something  worse. 

Surrounded  by  weeping  friends,  he  was  strong 
with  words  of  comfort.  "Be  of  good  cheer,"  he 
said,  "it  is  but  a  cloud ;  it  will  soon  pass." 

He  embarked  in  a  boat  to  go  up  the  Nile.  An- 
other boat  started  after  in  pursuit.  With  ready 
strategy,  Athanasius  took  advantage  of  a  turn  in 
the  river,  and  caused  his  own  boat  to  face  about 
toward  Alexandria.  A  little  later  the  pursuing  boat 
met  another  descending  the  river.     The  pursuers 


The  Last  Years  of  Athanasius.        135 

asked  for  news  of  Athanasius.  "He  is  not  far  off," 
was  the  reply.  The  boat  was  that  of  the  bishop,  and 
if  we  are  to  believe  one  account,  the  voice  which 
gave  the  reply  was  that  of  Athanasius  himself.  He 
put  in  at  a  station  near  Alexandria,  and  after  the 
danger  of  discovery  was  over,  ascended  to  the  upper 
part  of  Egypt. 

The  fourth  exile  of  Athanasius  was  a  brief  one. 
He  was  a  fugitive  in  personal  danger  for  less  than 
one  year.  It  was  probably  during  this  time  that  he 
was  met  at  night  near  Hermopolis  by  Theodore  of 
Tabenne,  with  a  crowd  of  monks  carrying  torches. 
Looking  upon  them,  Athanasius  quoted  the  words 
of  Isaiah,  "Who  are  these  that  fly  as  a  cloud,  and 
as  doves  to  their  cotes." 

Mounted  on  an  ass,  led  by  Theodore,  he  rode 
through  the  throng  of  monks  while  the  latter 
chanted  psalms.  It  was  a  kind  of  night  triumph  for 
the  great  exile.  Looking  upon  the  monks  with  en- 
thusiasm, he  declared,  "It  is  not  we  that  are  fathers, 
it  is  these  men  devoted  to  humility  and  obedience." 

At  Tabenne  he  inspected  everything  and  com- 
mended the  abbot.  When  Theodore  said,  "Remem- 
ber us  in  your  prayers,"  Athanasius  replied  with 
warmth  of  feeling,  "If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem." 

Later  we  are  told  Athanasius  was  being  removed 


136  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

from  Antinoe,  that  his  pursuers  might  be  evaded. 
In  a  covered  boat,  with  the  wind  against  him,  he 
was  composing  himself  for  the  worst,  when  his 
companions  declared  that  Julian,  the  heathen  em- 
peror, was  killed,  and  so  he  was  safe. 

It  was  indeed  true.  A  stray  arrow  from  one  of 
his  own  soldiers,  had  caused  the  emperor's  death. 

Jovian,  the  successor  of  Julian,  was  a  Christian 
by  profession,  and  favorable  to  the  orthodox  party. 
With  him  on  the  throne  there  was  a  totally  new 
ecclesiastical  situation.  He  treated  the  Arians  who 
wanted  to  put  forward  a  certain  Lucius  in  the  place 
of  Athanasius,  with  scant  courtesy,  and  restored  the 
exile  to  the  dignity  of  his  office.  Athanasius  was 
graciously  received  in  person  by  the  emperor  and 
had  the  opportunity  to  put  a  great  and  strategic 
emphasis  on  the  Nicene  position.  He  spent  several 
months  at  Antioch,  and  returned  to  Alexandria  in 
February  of  364  A.  D.  It  was  a  time  when  every- 
where the  orthodox  faith  was  moving  forward,  and 
those  loyal  to  it  must  have  felt  a  practical  hopeful- 
ness greater  than  they  had  possessed  for  years.  In 
this  very  month  of  February,  however,  Jovian  died. 
He  was  succeeded  by  Valentinian  I,  under  whom 
the  cause  of  Nicaea  prospered  in  the  West,  but  Val- 
intinian  placed  Valens  on  the  throne  in  the  East, 


The  Last  Ysars  of  Athanasius.        137 

and  in  Valens,  once  more,  the  Arians  found  an  em- 
peror who  looked  with  sympathy  upon  them  and 
their  cause.  For  a  time  the  change  in  government 
made  no  difference  in  the  position  of  Athanasius  at 
Alexandria.  And  in  this  period  has  been  placed 
the  publication  of  his  "Life  of  Antony."  This  is 
the  story  of  the  life  of  the  great  monk  Antony,  of 
his  renunciation  of  the  world,  his  struggles,  his 
saintliness,  and  his  power.  It  has  the  qualities 
which  later  made  monasticism  abnormal.  But  it 
has  much  Christian  feeling  withal.  Even  under  the 
fanciful  marvels  told  of  Antony,  the  Christian  in- 
tuition usually  remains  true.  The  book  became  very 
influential.  Even  Augustine  felt  its  power.  "At 
Rome,  and  all  over  the  West,  it  kindled  the  flame  of 
monastic  aspiration."  But  Antony  loved  solitude 
better  than  service.  That  was  true  of  monasticism, 
and  ultimately  a  selfish  isolation,  and  the  severity 
of  barbarous  self-discipline,  the  suggestions  of 
which  we  find  even  in  this  work,  proved  the  ruin 
of  a  system  whose  idea  at  its  best  was  partial  and 
abnormal.  In  the  spring  of  365  A.  D.,  Valens  be- 
gan to  take  measures  which  involved  Athanasius. 
He  ordered  that  all  bishops  exiled  by  Constantius 
and  restored  under  Julian,  should  at  once  be  ex- 
pelled.   It  was  claimed  by  friends  of  the  bishop  that 


138  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

inasmuch  as  Constantius  had  himself  restored  Atha- 
nasius, and  Julian  had  expelled  him,  he  did  not 
come  under  the  description  of  the  edict.  There  was 
such  a  popular  feeling  against  the  expulsion  of  the 
bishop,  that  it  was  expressed  by  turmoil  and  riots. 
The  authorities  decided  to  refer  the  matter  directly 
to  the  emperor. 

On  October  5th,  Athanasius  suddenly  disap- 
peared to  a  place  of  concealment  near  the  city.  It 
was  one  of  those  opportune  movements  character- 
istic of  him.  That  very  night  the  Church  of  Diony- 
sius  was  broken  into  and  searched  throughout  by  the 
prefect,  and  military  commandant,  who  had  come  to 
seize  Athanasius. 

So  began  his  fifth  exile.  This  was  the  shortest, 
lasting  only  four  months.  At  the  end  of  that  time 
he  was  recalled  and  publicly  escorted  by  the  notary 
Erasidas  and  a  multitude  of  people  to  the  Church 
of  Dionysius.  After  this  official  restoration  on  Feb- 
ruary 1,  366,  he  was  not  again  disturbed.  A  man  of 
about  seventy,  he  returned  from  his  last  exile  with 
seven  years  of  life  before  him. 

The  great  Church  in  the  Csesareum  was  burned 
in  366  A.  D.,  in  a  heathen  riot.  In  the  following 
year,  Lucius,  the  Arian  pretender  to  the  see  of  Al- 
exandria, ventured  into  the  city.     His  coming  was 


The;  Last  Years  of  Athanasius.        139 

the  signal  for  such  a  popular  rising  that  he  had  to 
be  escorted  out  of  the  city  by  soldiers  in  order  to 
secure  his  personal  safety. 

Two  instances  of  the  method  of  the  administra- 
tion of  Athanasius  have  come  down  to  us  from  these 
last  years,  both  of  which  are  to  his  credit.  In  one 
case  he  accepted  a  bishop  whose  ordination  had  been 
irregular,  because  the  practical  exigencies  of  the 
situation  seemed  to  demand  it.  In  the  other,  he  ex- 
communicated the  immoral  governor  of  Libya,  and 
made  the  fact  known  in  all  directions. 

An  interesting  feature  of  this  period  is  his  friend- 
ship with  the  rising  theologian,  Basil.  The  latter 
spoke  of  Athanasius  in  the  very  highest  terms,  and 
the  Alexandrian  bishop  defended  the  orthodoxy  of 
Basil  when  it  was  questioned.  Basil  endeavored  to 
secure,  through  Athanasius,  even  at  this  late  time, 
an  adjustment  of  the  situation  at  Antioch.  But 
this  did  not  prove  possible. 

A  council  held  by  Athanasius  about  362  A.  D. 
had  resulted  in  his  synodal  letter  "To  the  Africans," 
another  statement  about  the  great  Nicene  Creed,  and 
the  contrast  between  it  and  the  Arian  formularies. 
His  influence  is  witnessed  to  by  the  fact  that  at  his 
suggestion  the  Arian  bishop  of  Milan  was  excom- 
municated by  a  Roman  synod. 


i4.o  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

To  the  end  of  his  life,  Athanasius  retained  his 
interest  in  theological  questions.  Different  letters 
written  in  these  last  days  deal  with  problems  which 
had  arisen  as  to  the  nature  of  Christ.  And  two 
works  are  a  repudiation  of  the  views  of  Apollinaris, 
though  he  never  mentioned  his  old  friend  by 
name.  The  bishop  was  watching  every  theological 
current,  and  eager  to  the  last  to  save  the  Church 
from  possible  peril.  He  built  a  church  which  was 
dedicated  in  370  A.  D.  and  called  by  his  own  name. 

So  in  the  quiet  administration  of  his  diocese,  and 
the  execution  of  literary  work  dealing  with  the  pro- 
foundest  problems,  the  last  years  were  passed.  He 
was  feeling  the  weight  of  the  long,  heavy  years.  In 
his  "festal  letter"  of  371  A.  D.,  he  quotes  the  words, 
"For  we  have  here  no  abiding  city,  but  we  seek  that 
which  is  to  come."  And  in  a  fragment  of  the  letter 
written  to  announce  the  Easter  Festival,  in  the  very 
year  of  his  death,  we  read,  "And  as  all  the  old  things 
were  a  type  of  the  new,  so  the  festival  that  now  is, 
is  a  type  of  the  joy  which  is  above,  to  which  coming 
with  psalms  and  spiritual  songs,  let  us  begin  the 
fasts."  His  thoughts,  always  full  of  the  unseen 
realities,  are  turning  with  the  gladness  of  eager  an- 
ticipation to  the  other  country.  The  old  man,  with 
whitened  hair  and  serenely  beautiful  face,  is  full 


The  Last  Years  of  Athanasius.        141 

of  love  for  his  own  Alexandria,  and  full  of  longing 
for  "Jerusalem  the  Golden." 

In  the  month  of  May  (the  second  or  third  day) 
373  A.  D.,  the  end  came.  Athanasius  specified 
Peter,  one  of  his  presbyters,  as  his  choice  for  his 
successor,  and  then  tranquilly  passed  from  life  to 
where  "Beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace."  Very 
full  of  peace  on  that  May  morning  must  have 
seemed  the  chamber  where  lay  the  silent  form  of 
the  great  bishop.  How  often  he  must  have  longed 
with  a  sad  eagerness,  in  many  hard  and  terrible 
years,  for  quiet  and  repose.  But  he  had  not  fal- 
tered. He  had  borne  his  burden,  so  very  hard  a 
burden.  He  marched  breast  forward,  he  had  not 
lost  courage,  but  had  fought  with  unflagging  hero- 
ism and  unfailing  devotion.  Now  it  was  all  over. 
A  saddened,  bereft  city.  A  quiet  chamber  with 
awed  and  softly  moving  attendants.  A  form  in  the 
icy  stillness  and  silence  of  death.    This  was  the  end. 

But  no,  this  was  not  all.  A  Church  where  the 
name  of  Athanasius  was  a  word  to  conjure  with; 
a  world  which  had  felt  the  might  of  his  true  and 
devoted  life;  a  future  whose  battle  he  had  fought 
beforehand,  and  whose  debt  to  him  it  is  hard  ade- 
quately to  express ;  and  a  theology  living  and  pow- 
erful, and  vital  to  meet  the  very  needs  of  men,  the 


142  Athanasius:  the;  Hero. 

theology  for  which  he  had  fought, — this  remained 
behind  to  live  through  the  Church's  whole  life. 

And  what  for  Athanasius  himself?  For  the 
hero  who  had  fought  for  his  Lord,  and  now  had 
come  to  the  end  of  his  time  of  battle?  Of  him  we 
may  worthily  use  the  words  of  Paul,  "To  depart  and 
be  with  Christ,  which  is  far  better."  He  had  gone 
to  meet  his  Lord. 


CHAPTER  XL 
THE  THEOLOGY  OF  ATHANASIUS. 

W#  live  in  a  time  when  the  importance  of  the- 
ology is  often  underestimated.  There  are  spacious 
and  attractive  ways  of  seeming  to  exalt  Christ 
while  depreciating  theology.  It  is  possible  to  say 
that  we  care  much  more  for  Jesus  Christ  Himself 
than  for  men's  various  theories  about  Him.  It  is 
easy  also  to  seem  to  exalt  Christianity,  while  turn- 
ing from  Christian  doctrine  and  calling  it  unessen- 
tial. Here  we  may  say  that  Christianity  is  a  life 
and  not  a  creed,  and  that  to  enter  into  its  spirit  is 
much  better  than  merely  to  accept  its  formulas.  All 
this  sounds  very  reverent  and  devout,  and  a  good 
many  people  are  misled  by  it.  But  a  little  close 
thinking  ought  to  convince  us  once  for  all,  that 
Christ's  real  power  rests  at  last  in  who  He  is;  so 
that  the  questions  about  His  person  are  a  life-and- 
death  matter  to  Christianity  itself. 

And  with  all  the  noble  things  we  say  about  the 
spirit  of  our  religion  and  the  life  of  love,  surely  no 
questions  are  more  important  than  those  which  ask 
143 


144  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

whether  this  spirit  and  this  life  have  any  justifica- 
tion in  the  constitution  of  things.  Is  there  a  God 
who  cares  for  this  life  of  love?  Are  there  ultimate 
Christian  facts,  as  well  as  beautiful  Christian  sen- 
timents? These  questions  are  very  vital  and  very 
practical. 

Their  answer  leads  us  into  the  realm  of  theology. 
And  so  we  find  theology  to  be  the  very  foundation 
of  Christianity.  Without  this  foundation  of  doc- 
trine, Christianity  would  vanish  away  like  a  warm 
evening  breeze  followed  by  the  cold  chill  of  night. 

With  this  conception  of  the  importance  of  the- 
ology, we  will  approach  the  survey  of  the  theolog- 
ical positions  of  Athanasius.  We  will  feel,  not  that 
we  have  come  to  a  desert  place  in  our  study  of  his 
life,  but  to  a  place  of  peculiar  importance  and  of 
peculiar  interest.  Athanasius  himself  made  no  pre- 
tense of  being  the  formal  constructor  of  a  theolog- 
ical system.  He  was  forced  into  theology  by  his 
interest  in  religion. 

In  his  most  speculative  mood  he  is  trying  to  pro- 
tect things  which  he  believes  to  be  of  practical  Chris- 
tian value.  He  wrote  no  formal  and  rounded  out 
system  of  theology.  But  it  is  possible  from  his 
various  writings  to  get  a  pretty  clear  idea  of  what 
was  his  attitude  toward  the  various  doctrines  of  the 


The  Theology  of  Athanasius.  145 

faith,  as  far  as  they  had  been  thought  out,  up  to  his 
time,  or  were  thought  out  by  himself.  Beginning 
at  the  very  start,  of  course,  we  find  Athanasius  to 
be  a  Monotheist.  He  believed  in  one  God,  and  he 
ascribed  to  the  one  God  all  possible  qualities  of 
greatness,  might,  righteousness,  and  beneficence. 
His  thinking  was  rooted  in  a  clear  and  definite 
Christian  theism.  His  freedom  from  the  taint  of 
polytheism  seems  but  a  commonplace  now.  But  in 
a  time  when  heathenism  was  still  powerful,  and  the 
Church  itself  was  in  the  temptation  of  being  deeply 
influenced  by  its  contact,  there  was  a  militant  qual- 
ity about  a  Christian  thinker's  monotheism  which 
we  do  not  expect  to  find  to-day. 

We  do  not  need  to  draw  our  swords  over  what 
every  one  takes  for  granted.  The  opponent  of 
Christianity  in  modern  thinking  is  as  ready  to  re- 
pudiate polytheism  as  the  Christian  thinker  himself. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  now  foes  to  be  met 
whom  Athanasius  did  not  know.  The  agnostic  and 
the  thinker  who  legislates  God  out  of  the  universe 
in  the  name  of  science,  did  not  walk  the  streets  of 
Alexandria. 

There  was  one  feature  about  the  theism  of 
Athanasius  which  we  must  stop  to  emphasize.  He 
not  only  believed  in  a  God  who  transcended  the  uni- 


146  Athanasius:   the  Hero. 

verse — thus  being  quite  free  from  Pantheism.  He 
also  believed  in  the  immanence  of  God.  This  is 
very  important.  One  of  the  ^reat  questions  in  the 
history  ofthought  is  whether  there  is  a  natural  bar- 
rier  between  God  and  the  created  universe.  The 
root  of  many  a  sad  failure  in  thinking  has  been  the 
belief  that  in  the  very  nature  of  things  there  is  a 
barrier  between  God  and  the  world.  He  is  so 
high  and  remote  that  He  could  not  even  stoop 
to  create  the  world.  It  seems  a  strange 
way  to  honor  God — by  putting  Him  out  of 
reach  of  His  world.  For  it  practically  puts  His 
world  out  of  His  reach,  thus  limiting  Him  while  it 
seems  to  honor  Him.  All  sorts  of  errors  flow  out 
of  this  fundamental  one.  Intermediaries  become 
necessary  for  creation.  The  creation  itself  may  soon 
come  to  be  looked  upon  as  unworthy.  Matter  may 
be  regarded  as  evil.  And  the  very  tragedy  of  life 
may  be  declared  to  be  found  in  nature  in  the  consti- 
tution of  things,  and  not  in  the  awful  fact  of  sin. 

Athanasius  lived  in  a  time  when  false  notions 
about  the  remoteness  of  God  were  found  every- 
where. He  was  not  misled  but  held  to  the  one  path 
of  safety.  God  was  the  immanent  God.  He  did  not 
live  infinitely  removed.  There  was  no  barrier  in 
nature  between  God  and  His  world.  Creation  con- 
stantly felt  the  touch  of  the  divine. 


The  Theology  of  Athanasius.  147 

This  conception  of  the  immanence  of  God  is  very 
acceptable  to  modern  thought.  And  this  is  one  of 
the  places  where  the  instinct  of  present  day  think- 
ing is  correct.  It  is  one  of  the  glories  of  Greek 
theology  that  it  was  a  witness  for  this  truth  so 
long  ago. 

Creation,  according  to  Athanasius,  was  through 

^/the  Logos — the  pre-existent  Son.     But  not  because 

the  Father  could  not  touch  the  world  directly,  was 

this  true.     It  was  simply  a  feature  of  the  Divine 

plan. 

The  glory  and  hope  of  creation  is  the  touch 
of  the  Divine  upon  it.  Man's  hope  of  immortality  is 
through  constant  relation  with  the  Logos.  Man 
was  created  a  free  being — the  Greek  theology  al- 
ways emphasizes  freedom.  This  freedom  man  mis- 
used.   Thus  sin  entered  the  world. 

There  is  a  barrier  between  God  and  man,  but  it 
is  not  a  barrier  found  in  the  very  nature  of  things. 
It  is  an  ethical  barrier.  Sin  is  the  cause  of  it.  And 
sin  is  not  a  foe  which  slipped  upon  man  unawares. 
It  is  the  result  of  his  free  personal  choice.  The 
whole  tragedy  of  life  is  here.  And  man  is  to  blame. 
This  emphasis  on  the  personal  entrance  of  sin  into 
the  world  is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  Christian 
thinking.     To  vacate  sin  of  its  awfulness,  even  in 


148  Athanasius:  the:  Hero. 

our  thinking,  is  to  put  a  debilitating  poisonous  er- 
ror at  the  very  root  of  our  Christian  lives. 

Now  sin  has  robbed  man  of  his  relation  to  the 
Logos,  out  of  which  his  greatest  hope  would  spring, 
and  has  put  him  under  the  penalty  of  punishment, 
according  to  Athanasius.  What  is  to  be  done  about 
it?  Will  God  allow  His  race  of  men  to  sink  into 
utter  failure  and  ruin?    This  He  can  not  do,  and 

/  hence  comes  the  great  plan  of  deliverance — the  in- 
carnation and  the  redemptive  deed. 

It  is  worth  our  while  to  emphasize  the  fact  that 
the  incarnation  itself  has  a  redemptive  significance 
to  Athanasius.  It  is  a  feature  of  the  redemptive 
plan.  What  is  the  incarnation?  It  is  the  pre-ex- 
istent  Logos — coming  into  human  life.  It  is  God 
becoming  man.  This  humiliation,  this  entering  into 
bur  limitations  of  the  Son  of  God,  is  to  Athanasius 
a  source  of  never-ending  joy.  But  great  as  it  is — 
with  human  life  glorified  by  it — there  is  something 
coming  out  of  it  which  is  its  climax.  This  is  the 
death  of  the  incarnate  Son  of  God.  If  the  incarna- 
tion was  a  feature  of  the  redemptive  plan,  here  in 

v  the  death  of  Christ  we  have  the  redemptive  deed 
itself. 

The  greatest  thinking  of  Athanasius  was  not 
done  about    the  atonement.       He  may  not    have 


The:  Theology  of  Athanasius.  149 

thought  his  way  far  into  it.  But  his  whole  attitude 
toward  it  is  typically  Christian.  And  in  that  atti- 
tude there  is  a  profounder  meaning  than  in  many  a 
wrought-out  theory.  Here  is  a  place  where  we  need 
the  distinction  between  the  fact  and  the  theory. 

Athanasius,  like  multitudes  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians, felt  the  glory  of  Christ's  redemptive  death. 
But  he  doubtless  could  not  have  given  a  theory  of  it 
which  would  be  very  satisfying.  He  is  not  without 
stimulating  thought  here,  however.  His  intense 
/feeling  of  the  way  in  which  Christ  became  one  with 
the  race,  will  surely  be  a  part  in  the  ultimate  ex- 
planation of  the  philosophy  of  the  work  of  our  Lord. 

Athanasius  believed  that  through  the  incarnation 
comes  the  supreme  revelation  of  God.  But  he  recog- 
nized the  Old  Testament  preparation  for  this,  and 
our  dependence  on  the  New  Testament  writings. 
The  Scriptures  he  considered  an  authority.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  in  their  interpretation  he  insisted 
upon  a  study  of  the  context.  We  have  seen  already 
that  he  used  methods  of  exegesis  which  sometimes 
led  him  far  astray.  The  allegorical  method  of  in- 
terpretation of  the  Bible  is  a  method  which  would 
ultimately  vacate  it  of  all  meaning.  Athanasius 
was  not  free  from  this.  But  he  had  a  sane  sense  of 
what  the  great  message  of  the  Bible  was,  and  so  his 


• 


150  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

leading  teachings  were  sound,  and  even  when  he 
read  a  truth  into  passages  which  were  never  meant 
to  teach  that  particular  truth,  he  did  no  great  harm. 
But  the  trouble  is  that  if  Athanasius  be  allowed  to 
read  a  true  thing  into  some  passages  not  meant  to 
teach  that  true  thing,  other  men  will  read  falsehood 
into  the  words  of  Scripture.  And  at  last  there  will 
be  danger  of  Bible  study  becoming  the  ingenuous  in- 
jection of  our  own  ideas  into  the  Word  of  God. 
The  only  satisfactory  and  permanently  helpful 
method  of  studying  the  Bible  is  by  an  endeavor  to 
discover  what  the  writers  meant.  The  vagaries  of 
fanciful  exegesis  are  a  disgrace  to  the  faith. 

Later  times  were  to  give  new  implements  and 
sounder  principles  of  Biblical  study  than  Athana- 
sius knew.  The  historical  method  was  to  set  men  / 
free  from  the  folly  of  seeking  endless  allegory.  The/ 
apprehension  of  God's  method  of  revealing  Himself 
to  men  by  giving  them  at  every  period  the  truth  they 
could  then  understand  and  appropriate  and  grad- 
ually leading  them  to  the  great  goal  of  a  full  revela- 
tion, delivered  men  from  the  burdensome  necessity 
of  trying  to  find  the  complete  Gospel  in  every  Old 
Testament  book.  The  Bible  is  seen  in  its  true  vital- 
ity and  wonder,  as  it  was  not  in  the  days  of  the 
fathers,  through  the   splendid  results  of  modern 


The  Theology  of  Athanasius.  151 

scholarship.  In  these  things  we  can  not  look  to 
Athanasius  as  a  guide. 

But  some  things  in  the  attitude  of  Athanasius 
toward  the  Scriptures,  we  must  never  lose.  He  was 
sure  that  God  had  revealed  Himself.  He  was  sure 
that  the  Scriptures  contained  an  account  of  that 
revelation  on  which  men  could  depend.  He  was 
sure  that  God  had  wrought  a  great  salvation.  And 
he  was  sure  that  the  Scriptures  brought  to  men 
God's  own  message  about  that  salvation.  In  the 
Scriptures  God's  voice  became  articulate.  They 
gave  an  authoritative  and  redemptive  message  to 
the  world.  Methods  of  interpretation  may  change 
and  improve,  but  certain  things  in  all  really  Chris- 
tian study  of  the  Bible  remain  unchanged.  One  of 
these  is  the  unwavering  belief  that  here  we  have  not 
only  wonderful  human  voices,  but  here  we  have 
God's  own  voice  and  His  own  message  adequately 
given  to  the  world. 

It  is  most  interesting  that  in  one  of  the  letters  of 
Athanasius  we  have  a  statement  of  the  canon  of 
Scripture  as  he  accepted  it.  The  New  Testament 
contains  the  same  books  we  find  in  our  New  Testa- 
ments to-day. 

Speaking  of  the  Canonical  Books,  Athanasius 


152  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

says:  "These  are  fountains  of  salvation.  In  them 
alone  is  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  Godliness." 

He  refers  to  writings  outside  the  canon  which 
may  be  read  by  beginners  for  instruction  and  to 
other  works  which  are  entirely  false. 

Athanasius  had  no  hard-and-fast  sense  of  the 
authority  of  the  Church.  He  believed  in  the  Church. 
He  cared  for  its  unity.  He  reverenced  its  tradi- 
tions. But  we  do  not  find  in  him  the  Churchly  idea 
worked  out  in  the  fashion  of  later  times. 

It  is  a  great  thing  to  have  a  Church.  But  it  is 
a  sad  thing  to  have  a  Church  whose  very  strength  is 
gained  at  the  expense  of  true  religion. 

That  thing  happened  to  Christianity  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  and  there  were  not  lacking  *  evidences 
pointing  toward  that  consummation  in  the  time  of 
Athanasius.  But  to  him  the  Church  was  not  an 
end  in  itself.  He  was  not  a  Churchman  first  and  a 
Christian  afterwards.  And  his  conception  of  the 
Church  was  not  that  of  a  worldly  ecclesiastical 
prince. 

It  has  already  been  made  very  evident  in  these 
pages  that  the  most  vital  place  in  the  thinking  of 
Athanasius  related  to  the  Deity  of  our  Lord.  It 
was  the  mission  of  his  life  to  witness  to  the  fact 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  not  a  creature.    In  vain  might 


The;  Theology  of  Athanasius.  153 

men  pile  up  adjectives  and  glorify  Christ  as  the 
most  unique  and  splendid  of  all  the  creatures  in 
the  whole  universe.  This  could  never  satisfy 
Athanasius.  To  him  Jesus  Christ  was  God.  Any- 
thing less  than  this  acknowledgment  meant  the 
striking  at  the  very  root  of  Christianity.  Atha- 
nasius believed  that  you  lost  Christianity  if  you  lost 
its  Divine  Lord.  With  every  variety  of  skillful  ar- 
gument he  pressed  this  fact  home.  It  was  his  "all" 
he  was  fighting  for.  The  brightness  of  life,  the 
very  last  hope  on  which  he  rested  would  have  dis-  / 
appeared  if  he  had  felt  compelled  to  come  to  the 
Arian  position.  This  is  the  important  thing  for  us 
to  understand.  We  need  not  try  to  remember  all 
the  subtle  distinctions  made  in  the  course  of  the 
theological  controversy  which  lasted  through  so 
many  years.  We  will  have  mastered  the  heart  of 
the  whole  matter  if  we  understand  that  Athanasius 
contended  for  a  genuine  incarnation  with  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  completest  and  most  thorough-going 
sense  Divine. 

This  leads  us  to  a  very  interesting  question. 
What  was  his  conception  of  the  Trinity?  If  he  be- 
lieved in  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost, 
as  he  did,  how  did  he  succeed  in  protecting  his 


154  Athanasius:  the;  Hero. 

monotheism?  How  did  he  keep  from  affirming 
three  gods  instead  of  one? 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  been,  perhaps, 
the  most  puzzling  of  any  in  the  whole  range  of 
Christian  thinking  for  theologians  of  every  age. 
Able  Christian  thinkers  have  again  and  again  come 
to  this  doctrine  and  treated  it  with  a  haziness  which 
has  left  their  readers  with  a  sense  of  intellectual 
helplessness.  Men  have  felt  that  this  doctrine 
pressed  too  heavily  on  their  reason,  and  have  turned 
from  it  in  despair. 

Others  have  added  to  the  confusion  by  theories 
whose  internal  contradictions  were  only  too  evident 
to  those  who  were  seeking  light  on  the  problem. 
Still  others  have  frankly  confessed  the  situation  too 
difficult  to  handle,  and  have  taken  refuge  in  a  de- 
vout agnosticism  which  has  said,  "We  believe  but 
we  can  not  explain."  Perhaps  the  prevailing  atti- 
tude of  the  Church  to-day — as  far  as  sturdy  ortho- 
doxy goes — is  to  state  the  two  sides  of  the  doctrine 
(there  are  three  persons,  there  is  one  God)  and  to 
make  no  endeavor  to  go  beneath  the  statement. 

The  Church  can  not  rest  in  such  a  blank  and 
empty  attitude  as  this,  however.  Men's  minds  will 
return  to  the  problem.  The  ablest — and  to  the 
present  writer — the  only  satisfactory  dealing  with 


The  Theology  of  Athanasius.  155 

the  doctrine  is  that  which  sees  in  the  Trinity  three 
actual  persons — just  as  we  are  persons — bound  to- 
gether in  one  organic  Godhead,  in  the  unity  of  an 
eternal  life  in  which  each  is  necessary  for  the  very 
existence  of  the  others ;  the  Father,  the  source  and 
unifying  principle  in  it  all,  and  with  this  an  abso- 
lutely perfect  ethical  harmony  forever.  This  view 
gives  one  organic  Godlife  and  three  actual  persons, 
and  so  sets  the  mind  at  rest.1 

It  has  been  introduced  here  because  of  a  very 
interesting  question,  Did  Athanasius  succeed  in 
keeping  three  actual  persons — in  the  actual  ordinary 
meaning  of  that  word — back  in  the  Godhead  ?  One 
would  like  to  believe  that  he  did.  Undoubtedly  such 
a  view  is  the  natural  inference  from  opinions  which 
he  held.  Did  he  make  the  inference?  And  it  has 
been  ably  argued  that  he  did  hold  such  a  view.  The 
present  writer,  while  open  to  conviction,  at  present 
does  not  feel  certain  that  he  did.  It  is  a  difficult 
question,  and  it  would  not  be  strange  if  this  early 
Greek  father  did  not  think  his  way  through  it. 
Many  of  the  things  Athanasius  says  are  at  least 
open  to  the  interpretation  that  when  he  came  back 
to  the  inner  life  of  the  Godhead,  he,  like  other  the- 


1  Compare  Professor  Olin  A.  Curtis,  The  Christian  Faith,  section  on 
The  Christian  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 


156  Athanasius:  the;  Hero. 

ologians,  found  a  mystery  he  could  not  penetrate, 
and  simply  tried  to  speak  in  such  a  way  as  to  pro- 
tect truths  he  held  dear. 

We  need  not  pursue  the  theological  teachings  of 
Athanasius  in  further  detail.  What  was  vital  and  o£ 
lasting  significance  has  been  already  indicated.  We 
have  previously  referred  to  his  attitude  toward  as- 
ceticism and  need  not  enlarge  upon  that  here. 

He  lived  in  an  age  when  one  great  doctrine  was 
being  fought  out  to  a  conclusion.  And  in  that  bat- 
tle no  man  fought  more  bravely  or  more  effectively 
— and  none  fought  with  such  grasp  of  the  real 
meaning  of  the  issue  as  he.  As  a  theologian  Atha- 
nasius lives  as  the  great  defender  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Deity  of  our  Lord. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  MESSAGE  OF  ATHANASIUS  TO  OUR 
TIME. 

Over  fifteen  hundred  years  have  passed  since 
Athanasius  lived.  That  is  a  very  long  time.  How 
much  can  happen  in  a  single  century,  not  to  speak 
of  fifteen  of  them !  Life  has  greatly  changed  in  these 
long  centuries  and  we  look  out  on  a  far  different 
world  from  that  of  the  great  bishop  of  Alexandria. 
It  would  be  easy  to  think  that  a  life  from  so  remote 
a  time  had  nothing  to  say  to  the  world  of  to-day. 
But  such  a  conclusion  would  be  all  wrong.  Some 
lives  are  so  vital  that  they  speak  a  message  to  every 
age,  and  such  a  life  was  that  of  Athanasius. 

In  this  concluding  chapter  we  want  to  take  a 
look  at  our  modern  life,  and  see  what  Athanasius 
has  to  say  to  it. 

The  world  to-day  with  its  infinitely  varied  ma- 
chinery, the  swift  flight  of  its  locomotives  speeding 
across  continents,  the  gleam  of  the  electric  lights 
making  night  like  day  in  the  great  cities,  seems  dif- 
157 


158  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

ferent  enough  from  the  world  of  the  fourth  century. 
The  stern  might  of  the  Roman  Empire  is  only  a 
memory  lying  half  moss-covered  in  the  distant  past. 
New  continents  have  risen  from  the  long  silence  of 
their  seclusion  and  have  become  partakers  in  the 
world's  life.  Through  the  throbbing  nerves  of  tele- 
graph and  cable  men  may  flash  messages  across  the 
world,  almost  abolishing  space.  The  great  ocean 
liner  of  to-day  makes  the  mightiest  ship  of  earlier 
centuries  shrink  into  insignificance. 

Accompanying  these  external  changes  there  have 
been  vast  changes  in  human  thought.  Here  one 
word  stands  for  an  intellectual  revolution.  That 
word  is  science.  To-day  we  have  a  sense  of  "the 
reign  of  law"  quite  unknown  to  the  past.  We  see 
as  men  did  not  see  before,  that  the  universe  is  an 
ordered  whole.  Before  this  new  knowledge  of  law, 
this  new  sense  of  the  stability  of  the  universe,  of  the 
constant  relation  between  cause  and  effect,  many 
superstitious  beliefs  have  withered  and  died.  One 
of  the  great  services  of  modern  science  has  been  the 
way  in  which  it  has  cleared  the  life  of  thoughtful 
men  of  hoary  superstition.  But  underneath  all  the 
changes,  human  life  has  the  same  essential  mean- 
ing which  it  has  always  had.  The  form  of  life  has 
been  transformed  rather  than  its  essence.    The  heart 


Message  of  Athanasius  to  Our  Time.    159 

throbs  of  hungry  lives  beat  out  the  same  longing 
through  the  centuries. 

The  profound  needs  of  humanity  remain  un- 
changed, and  so  a  great  human  life  speaks  in  a  voice 
to  be  understood  by  every  age. 

It  is  here  first  of  all  that  Athanasius  speaks  to 
us.  His  was  a  life  of  victorious  manhood.  The 
root  of  everything  else  in  his  life  lies  in  the  fact 
that  he  was  an  earnest  man.  Often  the  world 
passes  this  quality  of  earnestness  by.  It  seems  so 
humble  and  unpretentious.  Men  seek  brilliant  and 
striking  qualities,  and  after  wasted  years  wake  to 
the  fact  that  none  of  them  are  so  mighty  as  the  one 
they  had  passed  by.  Often  earnestness  does  not 
seem  to  sparkle  and  glitter  much,  but  it  carries  in 
its  heart  a  fire  which  will  at  last  burst  out  in  bright 
and  lasting  luminousness.  And  Athanasius  was 
earnest.    He  was  unfalteringly  true. 

How  shabby  beside  these  qualities  of  his  do  the 
showy  falsenesses  of  clever  men  of  his  time  now 
seem.  He  made  the  right  choice  when  he  decided 
at  any  cost  to  be  true. 

We  live  in  a  time  when  the  qualities  which  glit- 
ter are  held  at  high  value.  Cleverness  might  al- 
most be  called  the  god  some  men  worship.  But  do 
we  appreciate  the  great  foundation  qualities  of  ear- 


160  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

nestness  and  trueness  ?  Do  we  understand  that  with- 
out this  foundation  any  structure  we  build,  how- 
ever pretentious,  must  ultimately  fall?  It  is  like 
breathing  fresh  life-giving  air  to  get  into  the  atmos- 
phere of  lives  like  those  of  Athanasius.  In  the 
midst  of  daring  and  brilliant  falseness  he  found  his 
way  safely,  because  he  chose  to  live  the  life  of  a  true 
man  full  of  earnest  seeking  after  the  best.  His  loy- 
alty to  that  decision  helped  to  carve  the  gigantic 
stature  of  his  manhood. 

Another  fine  thing  about  Athanasius  was  his  sim- 
plicity. Looking  rapidly  over  his  career  with  its 
ceaseless  activities  and  all  its  vicissitudes,  one  would 
hardly  think  of  him  as  an  example  of  "the  simple 
life."  But  we  must  not  be  hasty  in  deciding.  Down 
under  the  activity,  and  the  hurry  of  events,  there  was 
a  quiet  calm,  and  a  clear-eyed  single-mindedness 
which  are  the  very  essence  of  simplicity.  We  often 
confuse  the  issues  of  life  by  living  in  a  complex  haze 
of  emotions  and  thoughts  never  clarified  by  simple 
and  direct  thinking.  The  way  out  of  this  maze  of 
bewildering  complexity  was  found  by  Athanasius. 
The  secret  of  his  simplicity  was  an  honest  devotion 
to  the  best  and  single-hearted  loyalty  to  it. 

A  foggy  nature  may  be  full  of  interest  and  sur- 
prises.    A  simple  and  direct  life  is  the  only  really 


Message  of  Athanasius  to  Our  Time.    161 

satisfactory  one.  But  this  simplicity  is  by  no  means 
inconsistent  with  versatility.  Athanasius  was  a 
man  who  touched  life  at  many  angles.  The  sim- 
plicity was  in  motive  and  inner  bearing  rather  than 
in  experience.  The  cosmopolitan  has  a  place  among 
us.  It  is  right  that  we  should  have  an  eager  inter- 
est in  all  that  pertains  to  life.  But  down  under  this 
broad  outlook  and  interest  we  need  the  fine  sim- 
plicity which  was  one  of  the  outstanding  character- 
istics of  the  Alexandrian  bishop. 

Going  still  deeper  we  find  the  great  religious 
message  of  Athanasius's  life.  He  was  a  man  of 
God.  He  knew  the  glory  and  the  wonder  of  the 
hidden  communion. 

,  It  Js_a  good  thing  to  be  a  man  of  men.  It  Js 
worth  our  while  to  keep  in  close  and  sympathetic 
touch  with  the  varied  currents  of  human  life.  But  to 
use  even  the  knowledge  which  comes  from  close 
human  contact,  in  the  most  effective  and  helpful  way. 
we  must  have  something  more.  We  must  have  stood 
in  awed  and  reverent  joy  before  the  burning  bush.  A 
voice  ringing  with  a  present  sense  of  the  Eternal 
will  always  find  a  hearing.  Men  are  hungry  for 
the  Unseen.  They  were  born  to  companion  with 
the  Eternal,  and  their  hearts  cry  out  for  the  Father 
whom  they  do  not  know.  When  a  man  hears  the 
ii 


162  Athanasius:  the:  Hero. 

message  of  Christianity  and  throws  the  doors  of  his 
life  wide  open  to  its  work,  so  that  it  becomes  the 
possessing  reality  which  dominates  his  thinking,  his 
feeling,  and  his  action,  he  becomes  a  Christian  in 
a  sense  of  unique  meaning,  whose  influence  is  sure 
to  tell  on  the  lives  of  other  men.  This  kind  of  a 
definition  of  Christianity  the  life  of  Athanasius  gives 
us.  When  we  look  for  the  secret  of  his  unfailing 
courage  through  the  weary  years  we  find  it  here. 
This  man  knew  God,  and  in  Him  was  strong.  And 
the  summons  his  life  brings  to  us  as  Christians 
is  that  we,  too,  should  open  our  lives  to  God,  should 
venture  out  upon  Him  in  the  daring  of  trust,  and 
so  find  that  the  unsearchable  riches  of  the  Gospel 
are  still  for  those  who  go  to  possess  them.  It  is 
still  possible  for  men  to  walk  through  life  always 
clasping  the  unseen  Hand. 

In  regard  to  the  life  of  the  Church, Athanasius 
/  has  something  very  important  to  teach  us.  One  of 
the  most  subtle  and  one  of  the  most  dangerous  foes 
of  the  Church  is  ecclesiasticism.  It  is  possible  in  any 
denomination  to  be  a  Churchman  rather  than  a 
Christian.  It  is  possible  to  place  the  even  and  placid 
administration  of  the  Church's  affairs  above  loyalty 
to  principle.  It  is  possible  to  consider  the  peace  of 
the  Church  more  important  than  its  faithfulness.    It 


Message;  op1  Athanasius  to  Our  Time.    163 

is  possible  to  seek  the  external  prosperity  and  power 
of  the  Church  at  the  expense  of  its  purity  and  its 
adherence  to  the  high  standards  which  it  is  its  mis- 
sion to  uphold.  The  foe  of  the  Church  is  the  tem- 
porizer with  the  world.  All  this  is  made  more  dan- 
gerous because  the  spirit  of  compromise  is  likely  to 
clothe  itself  in  the  garments  of  devotion  and  piety. 
We  have  seen  how  Athanasius  chose  to  endure  any 
suffering  rather  than  to  be  false  to  his  Master,  how 
he  was  willing  to  see  the  Church  plunged  into  the 
most  awful  turmoil  rather  than  that  it  should  be- 
come false.  And  now  we  know  that  he  served  the 
best  interests  of  the  Church  itself.  Prosperity  and 
power  bought  at  the  expense  of  principle,  put  a  pal- 
sying blight  at  the  heart  of  the  Church.  Storm  and 
stress  for  the  sake  of  loyalty  to  its  own  high  stand- 
ards, make  its  fields  fertile  and  are  full  of  the 
promise  of  fruitage  in  the  days  to  come.  One  of 
the  last  acts  of  Athanasius  of  which  we  know,  was 
his  proceeding  against  a  governor  of  immoral  life, 
and  his  whole  spirit  was  of  heroic  and  dauntless 
faithfulness,  whatever  the  cost.  When  Churchly 
statesmanship  becomes  unworthy  compromise  for 
the  sake  of  temporary  external  prosperity,  the 
Church  is  in  imminent  danger  of  decay.    Men  will 


164  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

be  less  likely  to  fall  into  this  snare  if  they  have 
learned  the  lesson  of  the  life  of  Athanasius. 

We  live  in  a  peculiar  time  as  regards  theology. 
Men  pride  themselves  on  being  undogmatic.  A 
really  earnest  attempt  is  being  made  to  keep  the 
spirit  while  discarding  the  philosophy  of  Chris- 
tianity. All  the  appreciation  of  the  practical  teach- 
ings of  the  Gospel  is  to  be  heartily  approved.  We 
feel  a  kinship  with  every  man  who  desires  his  life  to 
be  kindled  into  a  glow  and  warmth  like  that  com- 
ing from  the  unselfish  love  of  Christ.  But  the  at- 
tempt to  keep  the  Christian  life,  while  discarding  or 
ignoring  the  whole  metaphysical  background  of 
Christianity,  is  doomed  to  failure.  In  a  period  of 
theological  transition  men  may  find  temporary  re- 
lief in  such  an  endeavor.  But  to  keep  Christian  liv- 
ing you  must  have  Christian  thinking,  too.  Atha- 
nasius saw  with  the  most  complete  insight  that  it 
does  make  a  difference  what  men  believe.  His  life- 
long endeavor  was  to  keep  the  Church  committed  to 
correct  theological  thinking.  He  knew  that  with- 
out this  nothing  was  safe. 

The  suggestion  which  comes  to  us  at  this  point 
is  obvious.  If  correct  Christian  thinking  was  im- 
portant in  the  fourth  century,  it  is  important  in  the 
twentieth.    The  Church  needs  to  be  roused  to  a  new 


Message;  of  Athanasius  to  Our  Time.    165 

interest  in  doctrine.  There  must  be  a  revival  of 
strong  and  virile  doctrinal  preaching. 

There  is  a  right  and  there  is  a  wrong  way  of 
preaching  doctrine.  When  the  preacher  mechan- 
ically utters  cold  and  lifeless  formulas  no  one  is 
moved,  and  small  wonder.  Like  Athanasius,  the 
preacher  must  feel  that  it  is  the  very  life  of  Chris- 
tianity which  its  cardinal  doctrines  contain.  He 
must  open  his  life  to  them.  And  he  must  give  them 
forth  with  all  the  eagerness  of  his  own  enthusiasm 
for  the  faith  and  all  the  warmth  which  the  great 
truths  they  express  should  inspire.  Get  the  con- 
viction of  a  living  man  pulsing  in  a  great  doctrine 
and  there  will  be  no  cold,  lifeless  formality  about 
the  sermon. 

The  invasion  of  the  sects  with  all  their  vagaries, 
the  limp  and  feeble  grasp  of  Christianity  by  mem- 
bers of  the  Church, — these  may  be  dealt  with  if  only 
men  come  to  have  a  vision  of  Christianity,  a  vision 
in  which  every  doctrine  shines  with  the  brightness 
of  its  full  meaning.  The  way  to  deal  with  a  flabby, 
undogmatic  age,  is  to  give  it  living  and  articulated 
doctrine.  Get  a  man  to  see  Christianity  and  many 
of  the  catchwords  of  the  more  superficial  thought  of 
our  time  become  unattractive  and  without  power 
to  stir  him. 


166  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

The  undogmatic  mood  regarding  Christianity, 
of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  comes  to  a  climax 
in  regard  to  the  person  of  Christ.  There  was  never 
a  time  in  which  men  were  more  inclined  to  pay  com- 
pliments to  Jesus  than  to-day.  And  there  was  never 
a  time  when  the  world  at  large  more  thoroughly 
felt  the  winsomeness  and  the  purity  of  His  life. 
Many  men  who  would  not  stop  with  a  mere  dilet- 
tante tribute  to  the  Master,  are  really  won  by  His 
life.  They  sincerely  want  to  make  His  way  of  living 
their  way.  They  want  to  be  like  Christ.  But  many 
of  these  men  feel  insuperable  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  accepting  the  Church's  doctrine  of  His  person. 
This  we  are  told  they  can  not  honestly  do. 

What  is  to  be  done  for  these  men?  A  wonder- 
ful way  of  escape  from  difficulty  has  been  provided 
for  them.  It  has  been  stated  in  many  forms,  but 
the  idea  itself  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
name  of  the  distinguished  and  influential  German 
theologian,  Albrecht  Ritschl.  The  way  in  which 
Professor  Ritschl  meets  the  difficulty  is  this :  Jesus 
Christ,  he  tells  us,  has  the  value  of  God  to  us.  He 
does  for  us  God's  work,  and  therefore  in  our  re- 
ligious lives  we  may  worship  Him,  and  accept  His 
message.  Beyond  this  we  need  not  go.  We  need 
ask  no  metaphysical  questions  about  His  person. 


Message  of  Athanasius  to  Our  Time.    167 

We  need  not  inquire  if  He  really  is  the  incarnation 
of  the  pre-existent,  eternal  Son  of  God.  In  fact,  all 
such  metaphysical  considerations  have  no  place  in 
theology.  The  bane  of  theology  is  to  attempt  to 
confuse  religion  by  introducing  that  which  really 
has  no  connection  with  it.  Let  us  be  content  with 
the  fact  that  Jesus  Christ  brings  us  God's  message, 
reveals  God  to  us,  leads  us  into  a  victorious  life,  has 
the  value  of  God  to  us,  and  ask  no  further  questions. 
This  attitude  toward  the  person  of  Christ  is 
peculiarly  attractive  to  the  temper  of  our  time.  And 
many  men  have  accepted  it.  But  can  we  not  see 
that  it  is  only  a  half-way  house  on  the  road  to  a 
higher  or  to  a  lower  conception  of  Christ?  If  Jesus 
Christ  is  all  that  Professor  Ritschl  acknowledges, 
He  must  be  more.  He  must  be  actually  God.  He 
must  be  metaphysically  divine.  And  if  He  is  not 
more,  if  He  is  not  really  God  incarnate,  men  can 
not  permanently  go  on  believing  Him  to  be  all  that 
Professor  Ritschl  acknowledges.  He  must  be  more 
or  He  can  not  be  as  much.  For  the  Ritschlian  posi- 
tion regarding  the  person  of  Christ,  as  a  half-way 
house  where  earnest  men  stop  on  the  way  to  the 
full  Christian  conception  of  our  Lord's  Deity,  we 
may  have  respect,  but  to  assert  that  it  represents 
the  ultimate  Christian  position  is  to  assert  an  intel- 


1 68  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

lectual  impossibility.  From  such  a  position  the 
Church  will  either  go  up  to  the  adequate  Christian 
view,  or  down  into  sheer  humanitarianism. 

When  we  turn  in  this  modern  Christological  sit- 
uation to  Athanasius,  we  find  that  he  has  a  most 
vital  message  to  give  us.  Any  man  who  has  learned 
all  that  Athanasius  has  to  teach  him,  will  see  the  im- 
possibility of  this  modern  theological  compromise. 
The  very  central  thing  which  Athanasius  said  to 
his  own  age,  he  says  to  ours.  "Nothing  less  than 
God  incarnate  can  meet  the  needs  of  sinful  men. 
We  dare  not  depend  on  the  most  exalted  creature 
for  salvation."  And  we  dare  not  depend  on  a  noble 
historical  mystery  about  whom  we  can  not  ask  any 
definite  questions.  If  Christianity  is  to  continue 
robust  and  vital,  the  whole  subject  of  Christology 
must  be  lifted  out  of  the  nebulous  haziness  which 
has  characterized  much  modern  thinking.  It  does 
make  a  difference  who  Christ  was.  We  are  not  ir- 
reverent to  ask  the  most  probing  questions  about  His 
person.  We  have  to  ask  them.  The  very  urgency 
of  our  need  drives  us  on.  If  there  is  no  answer, 
if  we  are  confronted  simply  by  a  pious  agnosticism 
about  Christ,  if  nobody  can  be  sure  that  He  is  any- 
thing more  than  a  creature,  our  religion  is  vacated 
of  its  deepest  meaning,  and  we  are  left  empty  and 
miserable. 


Message  of  Athanasius  to  Our  Time.    169 

But  we  do  not  need  to  stop  at  the  half-way  house. 
It  is  possible  to  know.  The  theology  of  reverent 
ignorance  about  the  person  of  Christ  is  a  theology 
which  has  never  adequately  studied  the  New  Testa- 
ment, has  never  really  understood  the  history  of 
the  Church,  has  never  sounded  the  depths  of  Chris- 
tian consciousness,  and  has  never  understood  the 
deep  needs  of  men. 

The  unanimous  verdict  of  all  these  brings  us  to 
rest  securely  in  the  belief  that  Jesus  Christ  was  in 
the  most  complete  and  fullest  meaning  of  the  word 
divine — "Very  God" — the  eternal  Father's  eternal 
Son.  Towering  above  the  Church  in  all  its  history, 
is  this  one  colossal  figure.  With  all  His  tender 
sympathy,  with  all  His  winsome  humanity,  with  all 
the  humiliation  of  His  life  and  death  on  earth,  He 
is  still  God.  And  our  hope,  the  very  glory  of 
our  faith,  is  in  this,  that  the  eternally  pre-existent, 
Son  of  God,  who  was  equal  with  God,  emptied 
Himself,  entered  upon  a  career  of  humiliation,  and 
for  us  men  and  our  salvation  became  a  man;  that 
the  strong  Son  of  God  suffered  death  for  us  and  so 
wrought  our  redemption.  With  this  unflinching 
faith,  and  with  a  personal  trust  in  this  Almighty 
Savior,  we  can  face  the  universe  unafraid. 

For  Christianity,  so  defined,  Athanasius  fought. 


170  Athanasius:  the  Hero. 

And  we  inherit  the  fruits  of  his  battle,  and  of  his 
victory.  May  we  be  clear-eyed  to  see  the  real  mean- 
ing of  Christianity  in  our  day,  as  he  saw  it  in  his. 
May  we  be  absolutely  loyal  to  our  faith  in  the  Son 
of  God.  May  we  accept  no  compromise,  be  beguiled 
by  no  subtle  sophistry  which  while  praising  Christ 
would  dethrone  Him. 

The  Apostle  Paul  when  an  old  man  uttered  some 
great  words.  They  were  these:  "I  have  kept  the 
faith."  The  great  message  of  Athanasius  to  us  is 
this:   "Keep  the  faith." 


INDEX 


Page 

Asceticism 90 

11  Against  the  Heathen  "...    40 

Alexander  the  Great 30 

Alexander,  Bishop  of  Alex- 
andria  37,  39,  49,  60 

Alexandria 30 

Antioch,  Council  at 93 

Antony,  the  Monk 36 

Apollinaris 140 

"Apology   Against   the 

Arians  " 103 

"  Apology  for  his  Flight  ".  116 
"Apology  to  Constantius " 

108,  116 

Apostolic  Succession 26 

Arius 48,  49»5i.56,73,77 

Ariminum,  Council  of 126 

Arsenius 69 

Athanasius — 

Birth 35 

Training 38 

Received  into  the  House 

of  Alexander 39 

Ordained  Deacon 40 

At  Nicaea 57 

Elected  Bishop 60 

Banished  to  Gaul 73 

First  Exile 75 

Restoration   and  Second 

Exile 83 

Period  of  Second  Resto- 
ration   102 

Third  Exile 113 

Fourth  Exile 135 

Fifth  Exile 138 

Death  of 141 

Theology  of. 143 

His  Message  to  Our 

Time 157 

Characteristics  of — 

Earnestness 159 

Simplicity 160 

Piety 161 


Page 

Basil 139 

Brasidas 138 

Byzantium 14 

Celsus 23 

Chalice,  Broken 67 

Christian  Apologists 24 

Clement  of  Alexandria 28 

Constantine 13,  21,  51,  54,  79 

Constantine  II 14 

Constans 14,  98,  104 

Constantinople 14 

Constantius..  14,  84,  98,  105,  128 

"  Db  Synodis  " 127 

Diocletian 13 

Diogenes,  Notary no 

Doctrinal  Preaching 165 

ECCLESIASTICISM 162 

Empire  Becomes  Christian.    21 

Eusebius  of  Caesarea 53,  55 

Eusebius  of  Nicomedia. . . . 
„   .,        .  53.  54,  56,  63,  95 

Exile,  First 75 

Exile,  Second 88 

Exile,  Third 113 

Exile,  Fourth 135 

Exile,  Fifth 138 

"  First  Discourse  " 118 

"  Fourth  Discourse  " 122 

Frumentius 62,  113 

George  of  Cappadocia..  114 

Gnostics 24 

Greek  Culture 12 

Gregory  of  Cappadocia 87 

' '  History  of  Arians  "...  117 
Hosius,  Bishop  of  Cordova. 

52,  123 


171 


172 


Index. 


Page 

Immanence  of  God 146 

Iranseus 28 

Ischyras 67 

Jovian 14,  136 

Julian 14,  128,  130 

Julius,  Bishop  of  Rome. .  .86,  92 
Justin  Martyr 27,  28 

Letter  to  Serapion 117 

Liberius,  Bishop  of  Rome 

107,  124 

"Life  of  Antony" 137 

Literary  Attack  on  Chris- 
tianity      23 

Macaritjs 68 

Magnentius 104 

Marcellus 122 

Maximian 13 

Meletians 67 

Message  of  Athanasius  to 

Our  Time 157 

Milan,  Council  at 108 

Monarchianism 26 

Monastic  Movement 104 

Nero 16 

New  Testament  Canon 25 

Nicaea,  Council  of. 53 

Nicene  Creed 58 

"On  the  Incarnation"..    42 
11  On  the  Nicene  Formula  "  103 

Origen 28 

"  Opinions  of  Dionysius  "..  103 

Paul,  Apostle 22 

Persecution  of  Christians. .  17 

Philagrius 87 

Philippopolis,  Council  at. .  97 

Philo  of  Alexandria 33 

Pistus 85 

Polycarp 19 

Ptolemies 31 

Ritschl,  on  the  Person  of 

Christ 166 

Roman  Empire 11 

Rome 89 

Rome,  Council  at 92 

Rule  of  Faith 25 


Page 

Sabellianism 26,  45 

Sardica,  Council  of 96 

School  of  Alexandria 28 

School  of  Antioch 28 

Science,  Modern 158 

' '  Second  Discourse  " 120 

Seleucia,  Council  of. 126 

Septuagint 33 

Syrianus no 

Terttjllian 28 

Theodore  of  Tabenne 135 

Theology,  Importance  of. .   144 
Theology  of  Athanasius — 

Atonement 148 

Church 152 

Deity  of  Our  Lord 152 

Incarnation 148 

Immanence  of  God 146 

Scriptures 149 

Sin 148 

Trinity 153 

"  Third  Discourse  " 121 

"Tome" 133 

Treves 75 

Trajan 18 

Trinity 26,  153 

Tyre,  Council  at 70 

Valentinian 15 

Valens  and  Ursacius. . .  102,  105 

Works  of  Athanasius— 

1 '  Against  the  Heathen  ".  40 
"Apology    Against    the 

Arians" 103 

"Apology    for    His 

Flight" 116 

"Apology  to  Constan- 

tius" 108,  116 

"  De  Synodis  " 127 

"  First  Discourse  " ,  119 

"  Fourth  Discourse  " 122 

"  History  of  Arians  " 117 

"  Life  of  Antony  " 137 

" On  the  Incarnation  "...  42 
"On    the    Nicene    For- 
mula"   103 

"  Opinions  of  Dionysius  "  103 

"  Second  Discourse  " 120 

"  Third  Discourse  " 121 

"Tome" 133 


BW261  .H83 
Athanasius:  the  hero, 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


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